His Royal Majesty, Benjamin Ikenchukwu Kiagborekwuzi 1, CON, the Dein of Agbor Kingdom, said the United States and Europe, have educational and agricultural subsidies but what is happening in Nigeria is corruption because the country is not poor.
The highly respected new-generation traditional ruler stated this when journalists from the Indigenous Correspondents Chapel of Delta State NUJ Council paid him a courtesy visit at his palace in Agbor on Monday.
The monarch said he learned that the country has several minerals that are so valuable but he doesn’t know what is happening to all the mineral resources, as he likes to see all the resources brought into the federal pulse. According to him, we are drowning in debt but yet we have so many minerals in this country.
The monarch said he knows foreigners are coming to the country, “China is not coming to Nigeria to have dinner and teach us how to eat Chinese food. Indians are not coming here to do anything. The West knows how important Nigeria is and how it is to the rest of Africa but honestly, we’re not doing things right. Nigerians are to blame because they are just keeping quiet without asking after the minerals. For goodness sake, nothing is been wrong if gold is been taking out. Anything done illegally also has a legal way of doing it but we are too used to illegality in this country.
He urged the government to work on the micro economy and the devaluation of the naira in such a way the Nigeria products can be saleable abroad while advising the advisors of the President not to push him too fast.
“For those advising our president and wanting him to move fast, let’s not put him in a situation where he will move so fast and then start correcting his mistakes. We have to give the president time and encouragement. Something like electricity increase should be increased for a reason just like taxes, we need to start paying taxes. Everybody needs to start paying taxes, but the fact of the matter is that nobody is going to pay taxes when they don’t know where the money is going. When you are paying taxes and you are not seeing improvement in the environment around you, one has to ask where that tax money is going.
“My advice for this new government agenda is for them to start tackling corruption because there is a reason why China moved from zero to a hundred and there is a reason why this tackling economy moved from zero to hundreds. If you are found stealing as a public officer in those countries, you will be killed and I am beginning to think of such in Africa because public officers are stealing the wealth of our nation. The countries and the continent have suffered a lot, the Agbor monarch spoke one’s mind.
He also talked about the tourism potential of the Ika Nation. According to him, tourism is something that should be felt, as it requires looking at the aspect of the community that will be appealing to the rest of the world. It has to be an interest, he added. “I think the best place to showcase that is the Benin Kingdom because they have amazing festivals that they hold every year. But while we all have to be correct, we have to talk about security. Aside from Ika being such a lovely place, the East is completely decimated. The economy is gone and the east has some of the best places for tourism, some of the best places for manufacturing, yet, we have a situation right there and nobody is safe over there anymore.
“Security needs to be tackled even when it concerned the economy as a whole. For us to invite the investors that we have lost back to this country, we need to tackle security outside of the environment because nobody is coming to partake in tourism in a dirty environment. We all have a responsibility to our various communities. Imagine a situation wherein drainage is been blocked by dirt and nobody in the community is doing anything about it, even the youths. Our boys are too much interested in ‘yahoo-yahoo’ making them sing ‘school is a scam’. Our kids must go back to school as it is very disappointing to be hearing now that school is a scam. At the same time, we also need to be seeing things from their point of view. What they are telling you is that after they have suffered through a four years degree and mistakenly six years due to strike actions, they asked where is my job. It is at this point they start saying things like school is a scam. School is not a scam but we as the government make sure our educational system is brought back to standard.
“When was I young, I believe when you leave Nigeria after getting your degree, they want you all around the world. But painfully now, when you leave Nigeria university and go to anywhere in the world, the first thing they wanna do is to make you sit for exams, which is an insult. What they mean is that they don’t believe in the credibility of your degree, which is quite sad. I know Nigerians to be the top most brilliant-minded people in the world. So I will say tourism can not come before security and a clean environment, it cannot come before people living in peace.
“Nobody is going to go to the east when you know that police and army officers are been killed. The sit-at-home is killing one of the most vibrant parts of the country. I want to see the Igbos being given an opportunity in a similar way as the Chinese are been given an opportunity. The Igbos are like the Chinese of Nigeria, they should be given that kind of chance. Allow the East to become our manufacturing because that’s what they like to do and they should be allowed to do it. Those interested in agriculture should be allowed to do it. Very importantly, the government should bring onboard into the federal pulse all our natural minerals. Oil is not the only thing that we have, it is probably one of the least things that we have and it is one of the most damaging.
“But while bringing all of these natural minerals onboard, let’s stop to bring them to the detriment of the local environment. We need to do this mining, mineral researching, and resourcing in such a way it will not destroy our local environment. Yes, tourism will come but we need to put some things in place to be to attract such.
The monarch frowned at Nollywood for how the movie industry is portraying the traditional rulers negatively while talking about the culture of the people. He said “Agbor has a particular culture but it’s not different from the beauty of the culture in Ile-Ife nor the beauty of the one in Lagos. This is what makes us Africans, this is what makes us Nigerians. One of the ways we can enhance our culture is by telling Nollywood to stop portraying our traditional rulers as negative. ‘Juju this, juju that’ – I’ve never seen anybody turns into a rat, I’m still here to see it. I’ve never seen anybody fly, I’m still here to see it. I’ve never seen anybody when thunder struck and they disappeared. All these are negative impressions the movie industry is portraying our country to be which is not supposed to be so.
“We need to start projecting our culture n a positive light. For those who are Christians, I stop looking at religion being taken strictly and I understand that everybody has their path to God. Do not charge people negatively because you happen to be from a different culture and religion. Here in Nigeria, we now have a Muslim/Muslim president. I hope the North will allow us a Christian/Christian president someday because it will prove that we are living as one and seriously.
“No part of the country is better than the other side. What we have is differences and those differences complement each other. The reason why I am so much accepted in the North is because I respect my Muslim brothers and culture. When I meet with them, I will pray with them and there is nothing wrong with that. I also expect them to deal with me in my culture like that and they have been very accommodating with that, he added.
The monarch also prayed that His Excellency Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, the executive Governor of Delta State gets the right people around him because leadership is about getting the right people to work with, adding that, he has been on the throne for such a long time, and the most significant part of it is that he was a baby then, and later a teenager, and now an adult.
He said for 23 years I came back until I started getting involved, the people have been wonderful as they coach me, advise me and they continue to do that. I’ve got an advantage because I am traveling which is one of the best education in the world. I have the advantage of growing up differently and seeing things differently that’s why my mind and my thinking are different. Assuming I have grown up here, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I had that advantage.
“I am very wrong with many of our elites who equally have these advantages but come to Nigeria and behave as if they never left the country. That’s the problem, anywhere you go in life, your degree or your education is meant to make you better. If you leave your place and you decide to see something better in life, you don’t come back to what you have and discontinue. You cannot go abroad and see that toilets work, shopping malls are nice, and hospitals work which is why everybody rushes to go get their kids abroad and you can’t make them here is wrong. We should make ours work because the beauty that I have seen in Maimi and other parts of the US can be brought to the Niger Delta. After all, I’ve been to the Niger Delta on the boat. I can guarantee you that if we organized ourselves in this country, oyibo will like to come here for tourism every single year. Oyibo loves traveling, especially to all countries. They will love to come to Nigeria but they don’t want to get kidnapped, killed, and abused.
“I thank the IGP for the fact of a very horrible video wherein some alleged police officers committed a criminal offense. Those officers were called upon, sacked, and arrested. Because if you are a police officer and you committed a crime, you are no longer a police officer. The moment you committed a crime, you are disrespecting the Nigerian police force, you are disrespecting your uniform. Some of our police officers are criminals because if a police officer is committing a crime, is no longer a police officer.
“Recently, I had the Inspector General of Police saying all police officers should follow the rules of traffic. I want the IG to go further by letting police officers know that if police are on an entourage, and they are guiding an entourage, and any civilian does not move out of the way of that entourage or maybe heard police sirens and do not move out of the way and park or allow that entourage pass, that civilian should be arrested. In America, in England, you dare not block the way of an ambulance, fire brigade, or police, you will be arrested because it is called obstruction of justice. Nigerians must respect sirens, it’s a two-way thing because there is what the government does for citizens and there is what the citizens do for the government. It is a social contract as we all have our part to play.
“I will also like to see less abuse in the social media between Nigerians because Nigerians are very abusive. I’ve never seen people who are so critical of their brothers and sisters. Control your mouth and mind the way you talk to your fellow Nigerians. The insult I see sometimes in the comments session is disgraceful and disgusting. Can you not make your feelings known without insulting your brother, calling his mother and father? What’s that got to do with the argument? We are richer after sharing each other opinions. We need to respect each other because this is a huge country and we have a responsibility towards each other.
“Africa is in the mess and it’s black Africans who are in the mess, Arab and white Africans are not in the mess. Or how do we explain that in South Africa when under the white world, the country was doing marvelously great but since it has been taken over by black fold, everything go down-down? We have to stop this despite having enough time, we also have enough examples. I guarantee you that Ukraine is doing better economically while at war with Russia than most African countries, and they will still come out of the war still doing better than the majority of the African countries. It is very bad, how long are we going to blame Oyibo? We are the problems, we are the faults. Why is it that everywhere we go as black people, is the same problem? We need to start taking responsibility for our actions, the monarch said.
