STILL ON AMAECHI VS KACHIKWU

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through   argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand."

                                                     — General Colin Powell

President Muhammadu Buhari must summon the courage to overrule the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Honourable Rotimi Amaechi over the Nigerian Maritime University Okerenkoko project.

It is unfortunate that Amaechi is bringing his personal emotions to bear on what is otherwise a policy matter. That the project was, until recently, midwifed by a protégé of President Goodluck Jonathan, Amaechi’s political enemy No.1, should not be allowed to inform decision on the fate of such vital project. Time for politics has passed; this is time for governance, for leadership. And the essence of governance is to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It is not to serve some parochial interest.

Regardless of the cost of the land on which the proposed University is located, scrapping it because there is no fund now to execute it is ill-advised. Any good leader should not terminate a potentially beneficial project because of lack of funds. It is only a short-sighted leader that would do that. A good leader never says, or believes, that anything is impossible to achieve; rather he concerns himself with how it can be made possible to achieve it. That Buhari is President of Nigeria today despite several failed attempts  in the past is a fitting testimony to this leadership maxim.

We are familiar with how the visionary and revolutionary Lagos metro line project was scrapped for similar reasons by the then government of Group Captain Gbolahan Mudashiru in 1984. Instructively, it was this same Buhari who was head of state at that time. Thirty two years down the line, Lagosians are still paying the price for that tragic decision. 

Like Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu noted, whatever the issues surrounding the cost of the land at Okerenkoko can be dealt with without throwing the baby away with the bath water. If the land was fraudulently acquired, or the price fraudulently inflated, there is a body charged with the responsibility for handling such things.

But to scrap the entire project merely for this reason alone would be tragic. I am sure the project can be executed if the government is prudent enough to reduce needless costs elsewhere. There are other sources of fund the government can explore. The government can seek partnership with the private sector or international financiers. There are also other revenue sources government can develop to generate money.

What should be uppermost in the mind of government is the essence, purpose and objective of the project. What does the project stand to achieve? Is the purpose worthwhile? If so, then scrapping it would be stupid indeed.

Amaechi’s sophistry that he was never against the project but only worried about its feasibility, is all well and good, but we all know that his first public statement on the project a few months ago was that it should be scrapped because similar ones exist elsewhere in the country. His argument that the N13 billion cost of the land should be recovered and given to him to buy “half of Lagos” and still build the school to world standards, is as disingenuous as it is laughable. It is even an insult to our collective intelligence. 

Needless to say that we need not dwell on it for the simple reason that it is easier said than done. We are all familiar with legal/judicial processes in our country, unless Amaechi is proposing that the government engage the services of ancient debt collectors. Even that does not guarantee a hundred percent success.

If Buhari choses to follow the route being advanced by Amaechi,  then he is rest assured that he is not going to see any of that money recovered till he leaves office. And that project will remain unfulfilled. It is my view that we do not even have enough higher institutions in Nigeria. So for a minister of the Federal Republic to suggest that one should be scrapped regardless of its obvious benefits is unfortunate.

What ought to occupy Amaechi’s mind is the advantages of having the Maritime university operational. The first obvious advantage is that it is a physical infrastructure which will bring development to its immediate environment. It will create opportunity for more Nigerians, particularly those in the catchment area, to acquire higher education.

Other advantages are that it will generate revenue for the country, create employment in the region, boost the capacity, skill and knowledge of stakeholders, operators and regulators in the sector as well as deepen the maritime sector in Nigeria.

These obvious advantages aside, it is a sign of inadequate comprehension of the true goal of a university as a generator of knowledge, and a very sad commentary on our self-worth as educated people that a minister of the Federal Republic would openly advocate scrapping an institution of learning, the challenges notwithstanding. 

As I conclude let me remind Amaechi of this quote by André Gide…… “There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.” The present economic constraints notwithstanding, it is still possible to complete the Maritime University if Amaechi addresses his mind to it.

This is as I see it.