Former deputy governor of old Bendel State and later Delta State, Chief John Edozien, marks his 70th birthday today. He travels down memory lane in this interview with ADEOLA BALOGUN
At 70, how do you feel in a stressful society like Nigeria?
I feel blessed because it is only God that can make it possible in a society like this. The whole lot also has to do with one’s lifestyle. There is so much stress in this country and you don’t want to deliberately add to your stress. I think part of it is to have peace of mind; peace of mind in the home, at work, interpersonal relationships and those things that count and that bring stability to one’s life. You need that stability as well as good health and faith in recognising right from wrong and always being conscious of bringing a smile to another man’s face; then a happy home where one retires to after the day’s work. I thank God for all this.
But has life in this country been this stressful?
No, it has never been this stressful. In the Nigeria we knew, the value system and the institutions were strong. When you have a good value system that guides society and if you do wrong, the institutions are there to sanction you; then people appear to keep boundaries. But what we are seeing is progressively the weakening of these institutions and values and the result is impunity.
You were born in Enugu but schooled in Delta and Ibadan. Was your father a civil servant such that he was transferred all over the place?
My father attained the position of a senior civil servant in the colonial service working with the Coal Corporation; that’s where all of us were born and we were not moving all over the place. My father started his career in Enugu and ended it there. But after that, we moved to Asaba when he retired. We were living in class quarters and when he was promoted, we moved to what was then known as the European Quarters. When my father was retiring, it was when I was about entering secondary school. I attended St. Patrick College, Asaba and from there, I went to Loyola College, Ibadan from where I got admitted to the University of Ibadan.
How was UI when you were there?
Fantastic. University education then was such that it compared with the best institution you could get abroad. That was why it started as a university college affiliated with the University of London. When we entered, we didn’t have to go through JAMB because each university had its own admission criteria; you might be found suitable by one university and unsuitable by another; and this is the way it should be. Ibadan was a premier university and when you found yourself there, you felt that you had achieved something great in life. You paid the fees and I have always believed, even when I was in government, that you cannot get quality university education without paying. Universities must be able to generate funds to run their programmes. If government wants free university education, it must fund each student adequately and pay upfront; because somebody must pay. In Ibadan in those days, my family paid my fees and we got superior education. It was such that you got into a hall of residence, people changed your sheets, you were two in a room; every other day, they came and changed your sheets. You went to the dining room; you just carried your tray to the counter where people lined up to supply you with what you wanted to be put in the tray. They would ask you what part of the chicken you wanted and when you finished, you went back for dessert. That was the university we went to and that was the university we graduated from. Today, you find crowds in rooms and in girls hostels, you find them cooking their food outside with pots and pans. That is not education. That is not the way to bring up our children. University education in the country today is completely a different kettle of fish from what we enjoyed. At that time, when you graduated in Nigeria and you wanted to go to graduate school abroad, they gave you credit because they recognised the quality of education you went through.
Was it books and books for you when you were in the university?
No, I was a well-rounded student. There is what we call the cognitive indicator of learning and there is what is called the social indicator of learning and as a good student, you should never allow one aspect to be ignored. I think I emphasised both the cognitive and the social aspects. I was serious with my study which was the cognitive aspect, and I also played my part in the socials. I was a member of the Sigma Club and I played tennis for the university. I had been injured playing soccer in secondary school, so I couldn’t play football at the university level. I was that kind of student who emphasised both aspects and I was able to achieve a good balance and I ended up with a good grade, missing 2.1 narrowly.
You said your father was a civil servant. Was that what influenced your going into the civil service after school?
Yes, I think it was part of it. I was very close to my dad and I recognised that the civil service then was well respected. My father was a very well respected senior civil servant and if you go to Enugu today, you will see that a street was named after him, Edozien Street at Uwani. That was the kind of respect that the civil service commanded in those days and so I had no difficulty following in my father’s footsteps. I also felt that I had the temperament for the civil service. The service was a revered service because it emphasised a whole lot of moderation and decency in your public life. I think that suited me so much because I am a private person.
I don’t like noise making and the service was such that you stayed in the background, you made your point, you allowed other people, the politicians, to take the credit but you were satisfied that they recognised you and you were happy with what you were doing. That was the service then and you retired as a recognised loyal servant of the nation; and you had your benefit for it. When my father retired, he was able to build his home and we never lacked anything. There were 15 of us in the family and everybody went to the university college; you can imagine that. I felt that the civil service suited me so much even though people expected me to go into the academics and do a PhD and go and teach in the university because my elder brothers did so. But I felt that I had a different calling; I wanted something different and so I followed in my father’s footsteps and I don’t have anything to regret.
You were involved in economic planning for so many years in the civil service. Who was responsible for the planning; was it the minister or the civil servants in the ministry?
We had ministers of planning but those ministers relied on the civil servants and the technocrats. The civil servants were there as the accounting officers and the ministers allowed themselves to be guided by the ministry and there was such a harmonious relationship between the minister and the civil servants. In fact, in those days, the minister would pick his aides among the civil servants in the ministry because with that, he would integrate more into the service because he needed to be successful. That unfortunately is not what is happening now and I think you may want to come back to that. To come back to your question, planning then was very interesting and my period in the planning ministry which spanned over 20 years was memorable. I look back and I feel that we made our contribution.
At that period, we read about Nigeria having long term planning like projections for 10, 15 years and rolling plans. But nowadays, it’s like everybody going to power works on their own template and leaves. Was it always like that during your own time in the ministry?
No, let me put it in perspective. I joined the civil service in 1967 and we went straight into national planning. I stayed in national planning until 1986 when I was made a permanent secretary. So, I started from planning officer grade two to grade one; to senior planning officer, to chief planning officer, to director and when you got to the director position; that was the highest career position. Permanent secretary is just an appointment position and I was appointed PS in 1986, about 20 years after I joined the service. And within that period, we did all the planning such as the Reconstruction Plan, First Plan, Second Plan. All we did was to collaborate with some members of the university. These were plans that were completely drawn up by Nigerians and you had a clear success for plan combination. And as a particular plan was portending, you had to develop guidelines for the next development plan. Those guidelines were as a result of extensive consultations with all stakeholders. We held serious conferences and at the end of the day, the Ministry of National Planning would articulate what we called guidelines for the next development plan; which was launched by the head of state or president as the case may be. At the state level, ministries of planning collate what the state governments have done while the federal ministry collates what the MDAs have done and there is a conference of the planning ministries called the Joint Planning Board where everything is harmonised and given a national symbol. These are decisions that had been fully debated at the highest decision levels such as the Federal Executive Council or the Armed Forces Ruling Council, as the case may be. It becomes the Volume One of the plan which contains the principles and policies of the government. But in terms of programmes and projects, they are packaged together into what is called Volume Two which are the specific, clear and well articulated projects and programmes of every level of government. If you are in Sokoto and you are in a community there, you know what your government is doing for you for the next five years. It is not about the governor waking up one day and announcing that he is giving you a borehole. These things had been articulated ahead of time and people had been sensitised so that they would hold their governor accountable.
You rose from being a planning officer to a director before being appointed a Permanent Secretary in the planning ministry. What was the role of training then?
In fact, one of the aspects of the service was the issue of training. I can proudly say that I benefitted so much from training by government. My graduate work at the University of Wisconsin was an in-service training funded by the Ford Foundation and government. It was a competitive exam among civil servants and I was among those selected. After that, I attended several courses here and abroad and became a fellow of several economic institutes abroad. I was given the highest form of training that anybody can get; the government continued to train us, not just me alone. There was a very vibrant training process which made us more effective and more committed because we felt that the government was taking good care of us. We had a very caring government and a service that you could be very proud of.
That was the service I served. At the Ministry of National Planning then, government business – especially the aspect that had financial implications – had a clearer procedure. National planning then was the brain box of government and any memorandum from the MDAs that had financial implication had to go through National Planning. It would not go to the FEC or AFRC without the comment of National Planning attached. There must also be the views of building and construction at the Ministry of Works attached and that of the Finance Ministry. Those are the three major ministries that combined to give government a balanced view of any memorandum from the MDAs. Then, government worked, the civil service worked and the civil service was respected.
So, where did the rain begin to beat the service?
I don’t know but I think that people would want to say the problem started with the 1975 purge of the civil service; it did a lot. But I tell you, after the purge, there were still a whole lot left in the service; the regulations, systems and procedures of everything and even the trained manpower remained intact. The military government still allowed the civil service to play its role in spite of the fact that the service was decapitated and still relied on what was left of the service. But gradually, things continued to happen to weaken and reduce the effectiveness of the service, leading to the policy that was developed down the line which made directors-general to retire with the government that appointed them. That also affected the service because it tended to remove loyalty and neutrality of the service. Thank God, many of us who were Permanent Secretaries then pointed it out and it was reversed. Then, you would not come to the ministry as a minister with a chain of aides who are not trained enough to fit into the middle level and they will come to boss it over senior civil servants. The minister would now create a kind of parallel service in their offices. I am told that they even operate their own separate files and when they leave, they leave with those files. Then, you have nothing to trace what they have done. These are some of the issues that demoralise the service and when you have a service that is groping for relevance, you cannot have the best. I think the civil service is there to help the government in power to realise its objectives and plans for the people. Civil servants should be allowed to perform and should be given the training and the tools and the responsibilities that are there for them. They should be allowed to do them.
Don’t you think that the various governments are in a hurry to achieve something and have to brutalise the service to do that?
Well, this, again, is what is happening; you demonise the service in order to justify your bringing people to take over their functions. The civil service is there to support the government, but if any aspect of the service is not performing its role, there are rules and regulations to deal with them. But the service should not be allowed to suffer from the activities of those who are regarded as non-performing. I have argued that the civil service is the engine of a vehicle and if the engine is dead, the whole vehicle is grounded. I will even say that it is in the interest of a reasonable government to have a virile civil service because then you are sure that you will succeed. Where the civil service is not working, the government is not working.
In the those days, we had star civil servants like Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Allison Ayida and the rest. What happens nowadays?
It is because the civil service is under a kind of siege; it’s like nobody wants to talk about the civil service. In the past, the civil service used to be the number one point of employment for young graduates. Like I told you, I went to the service because my father was in the service and made a mark. Today, ask me whether I would want any of my children to go into the service; because the civil service is no longer employment destination for graduates. Go and ask retired permanent secretaries how much they are paid by way of pension; whereas in other services such as the uniformed ones, they retire with their full benefits. The civil servants retire with absolutely nothing. Even in terms of national awards, are they remembered? So, how can you be dealing with a service that is completely ignored, brutalised, ridiculed? When you go abroad, wherever there is a performing government, there is a performing civil service behind it. You can’t deliberately demonise your civil service and expect to get something out of it. Politicians would come with all manners of programmes, but you must have a strong civil service that acts as a bridge to guide them. At this point, political parties should be able to articulate their programmes so that the civil service knows what they want to implement in power. Our party politics must develop in such a way that parties are linked with clear, identifiable programmes and philosophy. That will help the civil service to focus and assist government in power.
After your appointment as deputy governor of old Bendel State, why didn’t you continue in politics?
People expected me to do so but I was not cut out for politics. I always regard myself as a technocrat; I knew I was still going back into the service after the appointment. There was no amount of enticement to make me abandon my career for politics. I was not interested.
As a civil servant, how were you able to turn around the fortunes of Afribank when you were appointed as the MD?
I think, I had a good grounding in economics. By further training and postings, I worked very closely with the Central Bank and we dealt with financial issues and I am sure that all these must have informed the government that appointed me to head the bank during the privatisation and commercialisation days of the Babangida administration. I must say that one of those who made the appointment possible was the late Oba Olasore of Iloko-Ijesa, who was a top banker then. I had worked with him in various committees and he must have felt that I could do the job. I am glad that I took the bank to the highest level and the history is there.
But the bank went down at a point.
When I was there, I handled some of the most challenging aspects of the bank’s corporate existence. I took the bank successfully from a limited liability company to a Plc (Public Limited Company) and some of the Federal Government-owned banks did no such transition. I made it. The issue about governance and performance in top positions, invariably, is the issue of character. You must be able to separate yourself from the position you occupy. You must be able to completely detach yourself from that position or else you get into trouble. I always told people that I worked with that at any position that I held, I only needed five minutes’ notice and I would be out of the place because I have no personal interest. As long as you don’t separate yourself from the position you hold, you will compromise yourself, no matter how you try. When I was at Afribank, I took it to the fourth position in this country. I retired from Afribank voluntarily. I told them I was going to leave, that as from October 1999, I didn’t want to work for anybody at the turn of the new millennium. I left a strong bank and the issue about my successor was settled six months before I left. So there was an orderly transition and I handed over a strong bank in all aspects. I bequeathed a strong bank to those who succeeded me. All I can say is that four managing directors along the line, the bank was wrecked completely. The kind of thing I was hearing after a while was unbelievable because it hurts. The bank that I ran with a proven profitability in a matter of years is wrecked. One finds it very difficult to believe it.
At 70 now, do you want to retire completely from all aspects of public life?
I cannot afford to do that now, especially with the kind of commitment I have to the development of this country. I am still very much engaged especially as a non-executive director of Diamond Bank. This is an organisation that is doing very well and I’m happy with what is going on there. In recent time too, I was at SEC where within my term of office, we were able to transform the place considerably. I was able to bring my administrative and professional experience to bear and we were able to reengineer its internal process to make it more effective as a regulator and anybody who erred was brought to book. We increased the number of regional offices of SEC and made it a regional hub for the training of capital market professionals. We were able to regulate the activities of the shareholders association which made me happy. I believe that I brought a number of reforms into SEC and I believe I left it better.
You talked about a happy home. Did you deliberately look for a spouse that would allow you to remain focused on your career?
It was quite deliberate because I knew what I was getting into. I am a very private person and I wanted a spouse that would complement my attitude to life. She gave me the peace of mind that I needed in order to concentrate on my challenging civil service. My wife and children gave me a peaceful home to retire to, after a stressful working day in the office. I’m immensely grateful for the stability and peace of mind that I got from them.