The first military administrator of old Rivers State and currently the Amanyanabo of Twon-Brass in Bayelsa State, His Eminence, King Alfred Diette-Spiff, tells DENNIS NAKU his thoughts about state police and other issues
You were a military governor at the age of 25. Such feat appears difficult to achieve now as politicians in their 60s and 70s are still in power or working towards occupying top elective positions. What is your reaction to this?
Mine is a unique case. I passed my exams well. I was made governor not because I was the tallest officer. I served as the governor of Rivers State for eight years, which is like two terms of being a governor today. And by our Constitution, the minimum age now for anyone to become a governor is 30 years. So, you can see that mine is an exceptional situation. Then most of the governors in that regime were below 30 and most of my colleagues at the time, were below 30, and they grew on the job.
You were a delegate during the 2014 National Conference, but the report has not been implemented by the current administration. What are the strongest parts of the report that you think would have helped the country if implemented?
The 2014 confab was a very far reaching one. We had people from all walks of life. Past Senate Presidents, past speakers, Reverend Fathers, even Reverend Sisters were all there. We came up with very far reaching conclusions which included breaking the country into 50 states. Although the report has not been formally accepted and implemented per se, the present government has learnt something from it and a lot of things which are in the report are being implemented as part of their policy. So, they are actually adopting it in piecemeal sort of.
Some of the things I will like to see done is to bring out the issue of local governments and giving full responsibilities to the states to create the number of local government areas they want for their administrative purposes. At the moment, we have 774 local government area in the country, of which Bayelsa State has only eight LGAs. Only eight local governments in Bayelsa, I mean it is ridiculous. Kano has 44 LGAs, Jigawa has 43, and Bayelsa has eight. If you are going to recruit police officers, you now rate on that ration. A lot of things are based on the number of local government areas and you know it is double cheating, and it’s most unfortunate. States should be able to be left to create the number of local government areas they want and for proper administration.
You are the Amayanabo (King) of Twon-Brass in Bayelsa State. Have you been able to attract developments to your people since you attained that position in 1978?
I must say that we have tried to get the four shore protection projects for our community without success. Various methods have been used which didn’t work. The marine itself was reclaimed and piled where it is now. Otherwise the marine was very close to the Church of England cathedral. We piled the four shore of Brass. That we have done. We have been working also to get a road directly to Brass. We have not succeeded, but the government of Governor Douye Diri has just flagged off the last part of it going to Nembe, to Brass, last month; which is good news.
Another area we can look at is the issue of state police. Now, if we were operating state police, since we left the parliamentary system in the time of Abubakar (Tafawa Balewa) and went to presidential system, it is necessary that we embrace it hook, line and sinker. In the United States, you even have the local government, the county police. Remember the native authority police. The principle is that if you have the powers to make laws, you should have some authority or an institution to enforce those laws. That is the principle of policing. So, if states can make laws through the State Assemblies, they should have their own state police. This is a natural thing and they are dragging it over and over, looking at it as something special. I think it is one big mistake, and that is what why we are paying for it; you can see the rate of insecurity now. If there is state police and local government police, the bandits will have nowhere to hide.
What were the legacies you left behind as a former military governor of the old Rivers State?
They speak for themselves. The state secretariat built is still the tallest building in Port Harcourt. You can see it from miles away coming in from Bonny or from the creeks. The International Airport that was singlehandedly selected by me and surveyed by me and the Port Harcourt flying club before we passed the land to the federal (government), and of course, the East-West road linking Akwa Ibom, Cross River all the way to Delta State, and then several others. There is the Presidential Hotel extension, the Olympia Hotel, which was pulled down later. We had a resort in Isaka (Okrika Local Government Area). We had several other road projects and so on. The College of Science and Technology which is now a full fledge university was built by me. We trained a lot of young people under the special scholarship scheme. I intend to start a brilliant computer-based scholarship scheme very soon, similar to what I had at the time. That is the special scholarship scheme. We trained pilots, we trained navigators. We trained engineers, even leaders of men. We trained a lot of specialist doctors and we made sure that no area of human endeavour was left out. So, what we left behind are still standing and they are standing tall. Ask anybody on the streets and you will get the rest of successful list of things that were done in my time. I cannot blow my own trumpet.
The Nigeria economy is on the brink of collapse. What do you think can be done to save the situation and reduce the hardship Nigerians are currently facing?
Nigeria should go into more production. Agriculture should be taken seriously. You know we are almost sufficient now in rice production. Sugarcane is there. We can even go for sun flour, mango, which includes bush mango for our ogbono soup. They are one of the main cash crops. There is mushroom, we can begin mass production of mushroom. If every household is made to produce mushroom, the over 203 million people in Nigeria, everybody produce mushroom. You can see the effect it will have. And mushroom is very easy to produce. We do it scientifically now by way of tissue-culture. These are things that can also be exported. If we produce a lot of things that can be exported, that will shore up our currency. And if you are producing something that can be sold in dollars, does it bother you if the dollar goes to N1000 a dollar? You too will be enjoying that largesse. So, we should go for agrarian revolution. In that agrarian revolution, the mushroom should be the leader.
We have other crops; even hibiscus is a cash crop now. You have dogonyaro (Neem leaves) which grows everywhere in the country. It is a cash crop and it is very good for medical preparations. Sunflower does very well. Sugarcane can be used for a lot of things. Apart from sugar and other confectionaries, it can be used for blending, manufacturing. We have a very wide coastline full of fishes; so, we should be able to produce boats in fibreglass and steel. We have a lot of timber. We should be able to saw the timber and be able to use it to produce fishing vessels. We should have a fishing fleet and have a lot of table fish daily.
Successive administration at the federal level have failed to diversify the economy. Instead they have continued to rely on revenue from crude oil sales. Why do you think governments find it difficult to diversify?
Look at what they have done with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company now. They have just privatised it. But they should have commercialised it instead. We have been talking about this for a long time. All the subsidies should be removed. Let the price of petrol take its own level and you will find out that the country will be stronger and more robust for it. Government comes, government goes and they should try and follow the policies of those they have succeeded. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A lot of fancy projects have been brought in which at the end of the day have become white elephants. But whatever it is, democracy should not be abused. The amount of money used for administration is mind blowing. If you add up all the number of commissioners, the number of legislators, and the number of aides everybody has and monetise it, we are talking of half of the nation’s wealth being used for administration. This is not good enough.
How would you describe Nigeria’s current democratic experience?
We are running a unitary government. Nigeria is supposed to be a federation and the states should be able to make different laws and implement those laws. We don’t have to have uniformity with everything. But at the moment now, you know everybody’s revenue is collected the same time. Even states which prevent alcohol being sold; but when the money from the VAT from alcohol is collected, they want to collect the lion share of it. That is ridiculous. We are a federation and we are doing fiscal federation. So, states should be made to pay dues to the Federal Government. This arrangement where the Federal Government has the monopoly of all the oil wells, and you make the states beggars is ridiculous. They go cap in hand every month to share revenue. It makes them (states) lazy. Instead of looking for how to develop various minerals and things in their states, they all sit down and wait for federal largesse to come. It is very bad. So, I still think that if we want to go parliamentary, we go parliamentary. If we are going presidential, we follow the presidential to the heels. That is all I am saying; true federalism.
Last year, some hoodlums attacked your palace and looted some property allegedly in protest of something that wasn’t right. What actually happened?
No. I was surprised myself. Contractors worked for the company and they said the company had not paid them. So, they now went and blocked the gate of the company. In Port Harcourt for instance, you have different companies or you work for an oil company. If the youths of that community now go to lock the Shell gate in Rumuomasi or lock the Agip gate in Port Harcourt, all you need to do is talk to them and disperse them. That was what was done. Agip did not owe them directly, but they (Agip) owed them through contractors. With the COVID-19 in place, it was hardship added to whatever people were going through. So, in frustration they now blocked the entrance gate to the company. After many days, the company appealed to me to come and talk to the people, promising to pay the contractors who in turn will pay them.
So, I went there. We had a town hall meeting, which went very well. The women and other folks who decided to go and stage that demonstration agreed to leave the Agip gate. Some mischievous politicians now made telephone calls, whipping up sentiments. I went back and left for Port Harcourt. I was told that they had gone to destroy my palace and loot it. When I was talking to them, everything went well. There was no dissenting voice, but when I left, telephone calls and all that were made by some people. In every gathering, they say, there must be one coup. So, you have a lot of disgruntled (persons) and the pull him down syndrome people. In every gathering, you have one or two people who see nothing good in anything. So, they were able to instigate some of these boys who now attacked the palace, which was convenient because they were able to loot everything in the palace. It wasn’t the first time the palace has been broken into. There was a time they broke in there and all the elephant tusks and other artefacts were taken away. But they are my children and what will you do? We know those who did it, but they are now very repentant.
How would you assess the level of development in Rivers State today, several decades after you left office at military governor?
They say the world is a stage and men and women are merely players. I mean Governor Nyesom Wike is doing an impressive job. You see the flyovers, you see this and you see that. He is standing tall to be counted and wanting to be President. My goodness. You cannot deny it that he has really blazed the trail. Dr Peter Odili was here, he did so much too. Of course, after Odili, Chibuike Amaechi, who was Speaker of the state House of Assembly for eight years, also spent eight years as governor. He did a lot also. The point here is look at the population of Nigeria now. When we were governor, the population was something like 83 million. Now, it is 203 million. So, you have more mouths to feed and all that. One area people keep forgetting is that we have more pensioners to pay. If you now look at the number of pensioners, it is a whole army of them. The budget has to make room for that.
I cannot compare myself with what is happening now. Mine was a pioneer government. One major step, it was a mighty stride. But indeed we had to plan, kept planning and planning seriously and wisely. We tried to implement immediately and keep planning for the future. The East-West road came in as a breakthrough. From the East-West road, a lot of roads have now been constructed, till you get to the hinterlands. Unfortunately, successive governments did not follow up some of the plans. Take for instance, the road to Nembe (now in Bayelsa State) which I awarded in 1975 was at the cost of only N7m. The one to Bonny (Rivers State) was N5m. The one to Kuluama was N9m. Today, to construct the road to Nembe, we will be looking at trillion (naira).
Are you worried at the spate of insecurity in the country today, especially what is going on in the North? Terrorists are also threatening to attack some states in the South. What can be done to tackle the problem?
Insecurity has one answer. Who is responsible for internal security is a million dollar question. The police; the military is there to assist the civil power. That is why you have the riot police, and so on. The policing of the country is insufficient because of lack of personnel, lack of funds. Again, in a big country like Nigeria with a population of 203 million, we need to have state police. Can you see the difference? If we have state police, Mallam El-Rufai (Kaduna State Governor) will not be shouting the way he is shouting. He will be able to use the police to make sure that they are on the ground in every local government area, street by street. States that are willing to set up their own police force should be encouraged to form their state police. That will be the first answer. In fact, it will be a deterrent; it will be a warning to the bandits that there is nowhere to hide. The military work under the police as far as internal security is concerned. If the police cannot contain the insecurity, the military comes in. The military has their roles of engagement. You just cannot bring in the military to every roadblock. No, that is not the thing. The military is not trained for that.
As a former military governor and now a traditional ruler, do you think the monarchs are playing the role expected of them in the society?
No, the traditional rulers have been completely defunct and their wings clipped. It is so bad that they don’t exist in the constitution. There is no clause in the constitution mentioning any group of people called traditional rulers. What is the function of traditional rulers to the rest of the country? Why should they be marginalised to that level? You know they exist. People writing the constitution deliberately left them out. If your child is in school and they don’t put that child’s name in the school register, is that child in that school? It is as basic as that and I am saying this thing over and over, and nobody seems to be listening. It is sad.
So, you want the role of traditional rulers clearly defined in the constitution?
It is not a clear role. It should be mentioned in the constitution for protocol purposes. They are not mentioned. So, they don’t exist. They are now reduced to nonentities. That is very sad, and God is watching from a distance.
What is the secret behind your energetic looks and good health despite your being 80 years old?
God is my strength. The thing here is that as a trained military man, you are prone to exercise. So, we play golf and do our early morning exercise. But you have to be prayerful. These are difficult times and everybody needs to be prayerful. We have to pray for the nation. Above all, there are various supplements I take which I will share to the nation. You see when a child is born, the first food that nature has prepared for the child is the mother’s milk. That mother’s milk is not just food. It is a nutraceutical. The Fulani man is out there in the forest. When the cow gives birth, and the first two days you have the milk, yellowish. As the calf is taking it, he also takes it. It boosts the immune system. We now use that of the cow, the ovine milk, put it in a bottle, sterilise it and we spray it under your tongue and let it be absolved by your sublingual. It boosts the immune system. It’s just like you charged your telephone every night, bring it to 100 per cent and its goes for the rest of the day. Using this spray, it charges my system and it accurately modulates.
In 1973, it was said that a journalist with the Nigerian Observer wrote an article about an impending strike which was published on your birthday, and that you allegedly took offence and ordered that he should be given 24 strokes of the cane and his hair shaved. What prompted that sort of action?
What did Amakiri (the journalist in question) do? I would have been surprised if you didn’t ask this question. Amakiri was with the Observer Newspaper and he is my son-in-law. All his grouse was that when my cousin Eben Spiff got married, I attended the wedding. So, Amakiri was angry with me that I did not attend his wedding. He took every excuse to try to embarrass me at press conferences and so on. But nonetheless, I sort of overlooked these things. If teachers were striking, is it news? If the newspaper is reporting, what has that got for me to brutalize him or do anything? As usual, on my birthday, like Saturday which was my birthday, I went to the golf club and was playing some golf. On that birthday, I came here (Port Harcourt Golf Club) to play some golf and when my attention was drawn to the fact that Amakiri was writing something attacking government, I asked them (my aides) to invite the young man. I would like to see him. That was all I said. Invite the young man.
The trouble was that he had already got on the nerves of all the aides and people. His incessant behaviour amounted to complete disrespect and almost to a confrontation. The military people ran out of patience, especially with a civilian who had the power of the pen. I finished playing my golf. I got back home and I was told one Uzo and Sunny Wachukwu, who was in charge of the Tobaco Company, came to see me and that Amakiri was detained in the guard house and they came to plead that he should be released. I said ‘how come?’ They said ‘but you asked for him to be detained’, and they started shaving and all that. That was news to me. I did not ask him to be flogged and all that. All I said was I want him to come and see me. As a son-in-law, I sent for him. I didn’t see him. I thought he has as usual bluffed me again. When these people came around 6pm, I said is that so? Release him. I wanted to talk some sense into him and that he should comport himself. Meanwhile, they had already briefed the press, saying ‘foolish boy, see the mistakes he is making’. They are the same ones who came to advise me to follow that route. So, there was a lot of intrigues. As a military governor, I was the overall father of everybody, like I am the father of Africa now. I have been made the ruler of the African Diaspora Council of Traditional Rulers. Even onboard the ship, I was the father of all onboard, They call me the Daddy. There is nothing one has to be worried about. One has to have that benevolence and goodwill of a father. So, I released him, and that was that. He now went back to report to my colleague, Samuel Ogbemudia.
Are you saying it wasn’t true that you ordered that his hair should be shaved and that he be flogged with the cane?
How can I shave his head? Some people even said his hair was shaved with bottle and all of that. That is what I heard. And it is now on my own testimonial because if you search Google, you will see all the nice things said about me and that ‘he is also the one who caned the journalist and shaved his hair’. I did not. Anyway, the matter went to court and the judge who was a golfer and who was right here, sitting at that corner there with General (David) Ejor and Major Isa Bukar, the thing came up in our discussion. He said if I wanted to arrest him, I would have sent him to our military guardroom. I said I did not send, I did not ask for Amakiri to be arrested. What would I ask anybody to shave his head for, my own son-in-law? It doesn’t rhyme. So, the judge was sitting there when this matter came up for discussion and to prevent any discussion about it, I now halted him and said look, this matter may go to court and so, we should not talk about it. That was how that matter stopped being discussed. This matter went to court, and this same judge went and solicited for it. If you look at the judgment, the extraneous things that were written in the judgement, they have no bearing with Amakiri’s case.
Do you think Bayelsa and Rivers states are where they should be when juxtaposed with other states that were created the same time with these two states?
No. I weep for Bayelsa State. How can you have only eight local governments in a state? What has Bayelsa State done to the nation? It is very unfair. And as far as I am concerned, something needs to be done.
Something like what?
I mean eight local governments? Even Oloibiri (where oil was first discovered in commercial quantity) is there. Nothing to show for it, not even a thatch house. You have the naked wells standing there. We should be talking of creating an Oloibiri state. There are some things which are done in the country which are unexplainable. And the nation just sits there, watching this injustice being perpetrated, and you can’t blame anybody. We were happy that despite the eight local government areas given to us, Bayelsa State was created. Rivers State also collects all the revenue. The workers for Shell and AGIP and what have you, they go to the creeks in Bayelsa to work. But they still come here (Rivers State) and pay all their taxes here. I was advising that we have a central purse and to have some other things in common. But they didn’t take me seriously. Rivers has all the things. In fact and indeed, the other time, Bayelsa State House of Assembly summoned me and accused me of favouring Rivers State. And I said no. I was the chairman of the Bayelsa State team when they were doing the sharing of assets. But I was removed and they put people who they thought were tigers to get the results. But they turned out to be paper tigers. They should not be asking me any question. They should be asking those who concluded the arrangement because as far as I am concerned, by flesh and blood, you cannot separate us. So, even collection of revenue would have been central in some areas. A lot of the oil company workers, although they work in the creeks of Bayelsa, they are residents in Port Harcourt, and their pay point is still Port Harcourt. All their tax payments are domiciled here in Port Harcourt. It is so difficult to collect revenue in Bayelsa. As we speak, you want to hold somebody who is not sure of his next meal to come and pay bicycle rent or to pay for canoe licence? So, how does the Bayelsa State Government survive?
These are where there should be close cooperation between Rivers and Bayelsa states. But here again, you know the South-South, they have been working together, they were drawn to have common services, you know the BRACED Commission (acronym for Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo and Delta), to have a common bank and all that. But it is left to the governors to follow that arrangement and bring it to fruition. A lot of cooperative things should be done between the states. These are some of the things that ought to be sorted out in the 2014 confab report. Those things that will make a state grow should be allowed. Any state that feels that they cannot cope and want to be merged with another state should be allowed.
My main concern now is to see that the Africans in Diaspora are encouraged to come back home because they are determined that they want to come back home and contribute to the development of Africa. They are many of them in different parts of the Diaspora who are well to do and who are also leadership materials in their various countries. They want to take dual citizenship, and they want to build a memoriam city. They want to come and establish more on African development fund and also a Diaspora bank so that there will be funds enough for their entrepreneurs to really bring Africa to the level where you don’t have African countries looking up to China or this or that for handouts in this day and age.
