What options do you consider feasible to move the power sector forward?
Given the sheer magnitude of what is required, I understand we need about $35 billion investment annually in that sector but it is not the only sector that needs investment.  There is a crying need for investment in education, in health and in public transportation.  So, if we want to address these sectors, we certainly need intervention and that intervention must come, not only in terms of capital but also capacity.  Presently, the government does not even have the capacity to mange these projects.  The truth is that all the money we have spent so far was with good intentions but there is a difference between good intentions and good results.  The difference comes from your lack of capacity to be able to mange the resources.  At the end of the day, ideas are capitals; the rest is just money.  So in time past, we were just throwing money to get value?  Certainly, we would not solve the problem.  The only way we can do that is to bring in people who have the know-how and also have their capital.  When they have their capital at risk and bring in the know-how and competence, things would work.  These are from the private sector and largely; we would need private sector initiatives and some foreign direct investments.

Talking about the deficiency in our infrastructure, what recommendations do you have as panacea?
I think, given the sheer magnitude of what needs to be done in terms of financial requirements and also in terms of he project management expertise that is required, government certainly cannot handle issues of this magnitude alone.  There need to be a public/private partnership to address these issues.  For instance, if this is to happen, you need the right framework, the right models.  And the, people will need to be sure that the right incentives are there, the right policy framework is there  for them to be able to invest and then earn a return from such investments because there is no way private capital can come into investment in infrastructure if there is no guaranteed return.  Then, we need to have sustainable regime in terms of tax and also in terms of regulations so that you don’t wake up overnight and find yourself at the losing end.

In the light of the instability at the political scene, do you think Nigeria is currently experiencing true democracy?
I think it was Winston Churchill that said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms of government, which has been tried from time to time.  In the contest of this, you look at our history.  Judging from where we are, it is like we are trying to evolve a nation from a difficult history and social justice to build a political and economic stability.  And we have seen that to a significant extent, that cannot only happen.  It would require social connections and dialogue and it is only in the context of democracy that this can happen.  Although there are issues over our democracy today, we have politicians who have what I would call terrorist lifestyle.  Recently, people have criticised the level of spending we have to maintain our political institution.  Hopefully, we would use the process of the political reforms and the constitutional review process to address these issues.  Whether we should have it as it is today, a democracy, which I feel, is over-financed, over-represented and over-administered.  To that extend, we would look at those issues, but it still remains the worst form of government.

uac currently has what is called “Doing Good” policy.  In view of your corporate social responsibility, how does this policy affect the ordinary man on the street?
I think for us, we see corporate social responsibility as implicit social franchise that a business must have with the community within which it operates.  But we also must be mindful that we should not allow government to offload what actually is their responsibility unto business institutions.  Businesses should exist for the mere fact that it should impact on the needs of the society and also guarantee profit to the shareholders.  I see a danger; as it is today, people are beginning to equate corporate social responsibility with cheque book philanthropy or corporate philanthropy.  That is why we must be careful that we don’t think that corporate social responsibility is the number of car engines you donate to government and the number of security and pick-up vans that we see some our colleagues in the financial institution giving.  Corporate social responsibility means that business should look at those aspects of the society that it can actually engage in to ensure that it brings good to the society.  It is not a feel good thing; it is something that makes for real good in the society and if you look at areas that are on ground today, there is a lot of gap in health, education and social services.  For us, we need to look at where we can help the government to give a helping hand to those people who deserve it.  If you have a democracy like ours, you must be careful that you don’t create a situation where there is huge gap between those who have and those who do not.  While there is an opportunity for people to get wealth and innovate, there are also people who are very vulnerable.  People with liabilities, people who are so far behind that they cannot catch up with the opportunities we are trying to create.  So, businesses need to create the right platform for that to happen and our own intervention is in the area of education largely, to ensure that we create the right environment to allow those people who are challenged, the vulnerable people, the indigent to be able to get quality education through our public educational institutions.  I keep saying this, that today; we virtually have privatised institutions – privatised government.  We have private hospitals, private primary schools, private secondary schools, private universities and even private security firms.  Where would the public go?  They would still have to go those places.  That is why we believe that it is important that a company like ours intervene in the sector to give a society, which guarantees mobility rather than a society that is static.  Presently, there is no equality; there is no society of mobility but there should be a society of equality.  A person who starts from the lower rung of the ladder can climb that ladder of opportunity and that should only happen through education.

So what are you doing in the area of education?
Well, we have actually come up with an intervention programme, tailored at looking at the needs of our legacy schools.  These are schools, which have produced the great and good in the Nigerian society, and that is part of our corporate social responsibility, through the “goodness League” platform.  And what we hope to do there is to mobilise and sensitize a coalition of like-minded corporate institutions and people to be able to attend to issues that are of grave concern within those educational institutions.  These include issues of infrastructure within the institution and that they should aspire to be such.  The truth  is that when you go to some of those schools, the students cannot even aspire to be like their teachers because the teachers themselves need to be inspired.  In actual fact, we have started this initiative.  We want to cover the six geopolitical zones of this country.  We started with the South West geo-political zone.  We have had significant engagement in two institutions – CMS Grammar School and St Finbarrs College.  This year, we would be going towards the North Central geo-political zone.  We hope to do that.  For us, this is a significant thing.

On a last note, what advise do you have for this administration on this occasion of President Umaru Yar’Adua  one-year tenure in office as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
I think he is well positioned.  He came into government with a rare political commodity called optimism.  A lot of people seem to be very optimistic about his government.  He came into government with a lot of momentum behind him.  Although, I know there were initial challenges, given the issues around the election as to input legitimacy but I think that is being addressed by the court.  Now, we should be looking for output legitimacy.  What makes the government legitimate in terms of output is its ability to deliver in terms of its promise.  He has promised us a seven-point agenda.  At least  in the remaining three years of this tenure, if he cannot deliver on the seven, let him tell us the four he intends to focus on and one of them should definitely be power.

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