Ugochukwu: Nigeria Has Adjusted Federalism, Presidential System Out of Order

Onyema Ugochukwu is a consummate journalist, politician and veteran of his field. As a research economist with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), he shockingly abandoned his central banking job for journalism to the consternation of many, including family

CFirst of all, I want to thank God that I am getting to this milestone. It is very important for me. Very significant, this has been a difficult year, ordinarily for me. I would not want to celebrate but I know that I have to give thanks to God for bringing me to this milestone. For severally reasons really, one being that I am the first of my siblings to reach this age, that is why it is very significant. It is only two of us left now, I hope that my sister go through it. But I was born in a family of seven children. My father has one wife, of course. It was a very happy family and it was in the village, we weren’t rich but, we were quite comfortable. For there was a lot to eat, a time to play and of course, a time to go to school, it was very interest in Umuahia. I think I spent the first nine years of my childhood in the village and then. I hard to go to live in what was then known as the Ikwegan in Opobo, which is in Ikot-Abasi where I did primary 4 to 6, then from Ikwegan, I passed into Methodist College in Uzuakoli in 1959, I spent seven years, almost eight years actually, I did School Certificate, Higher School and at the end of the higher school, I was kept to teach for eight months before I go the university. School then was very interesting than in the Methodist College. Uzuakoli was very exciting, what made it so, in our year, 1959, we were having 30 boys admitted, they actually admitted 60, the school decided that the accommodation won’t be sufficient, so, they asked the other half in our team to find other schools. So that year, we were only 30 boys in Methodist College Uzuakoli, and what makes it so interesting was that, the kind of experience was unusual. We went in there in January and by February, the whole class took off to Onitsha and we were in Onitsha for one whole month. And our class teacher then was one young English man called Peterson. When all of us went to Onitsha and we went around the whole town visiting the market, the prison, the traditional rulers and we came back and we were required to write a book about Onitsha so the book was prepared from the scene, that was how we started our secondary school education going out to do what was called a project in Onitsha one month and we came back. The school in those days was quite exciting, boarding school, the great teachers we had; a lot of English teachers actually even up to the time I left seven years after others more than three quarter of the teachers were actually Britons who came out teaching.

During that period, you had a conducive atmosphere, now, the same people who had everything at their disposal are finding it difficult to provide common infrastructure and development that was in abundance, it’s like they are turning around to destroy the country. What is you take on that?

I say that students of my generation, we went to school mostly on scholarship, I think we can’t guarantee the same for the future generation. But it needs to be explained, at Uzuakoli, we paid fees. When we went in 1959, the fees were about 13 pounds and some shillings, which was a lot of money a term. It came to about 42 pounds a year. By the time I was leaving, it has gone to about 52 pounds a year, which was a lot of money to be paid in those days. By the time I went into the university Nsukka, the fees were 170 pounds you know and if you concede that as at that time you get a car for 600 pounds, you can get an idea of the value of what that 170 pound was. People paid for education and then, government supported exceptional students with scholarship. But, education was paid for. That is the point. People pay something. I think this went on until after the war. Maybe in fact, some years after the war, around 1973, we had the first flush of the oil boom you know following the Arab/ Egyptian war, the oil prices went up from 2.4 dollars till it was and 12 dollars a barrel. You know, that was a whole lot of money coming into the Nigeria system. And by 1974, we were talking about Udoji, increasing salaries across the board and over paying up arrears and our Head of State then of course was even quoted saying our problem was not money but how to spend it. So there was that flush of money and people began to assume that we didn’t have to pay for education you know. I know people who got scholarship and also collected bursary. By the way I had left then, I graduated in 1972 and the reason I graduated in 1972 was of course the civil war, we have to go fight the civil war and then come back and finish. And I went into the university in 1966 and the war came to an end, then we came back in 1970 and graduated in 1972. But the point I am making is that, after 1972, there was a flush of money and that was when we thought the government could do everything. We were also, under military rule which tended to centralise everything. Government took over mission schools, which started in East-central state after the war. And then other states adopted it. And so many things became centralised at that time.

Looking at your personality, even as a young person then, you had a very good educational background, you studied economist in UNN, what prompted your decision to venture into the civil war then?

To venture? The war came to us, I was in the university and then the war started, we got into a war, and we never knew how horrible a war would be really and then so we couldn’t go to school any more. I remember, a bunch of us, undergraduate, we were matching up and down on the streets of Port-Harcourt and asking to be given guns and we were parading with sticks and things like that, asking to be given guns and we wanted to join the army to fight for our own side of course. But particularly when my best friend was killed in the war from there, I knew I had to join the war and then, I joined in the officer’s training programme. Well, the officers’ training programme was six weeks actually and then you are commissioned and then you are an officer and you know at our time, you got one rank and it looked like you were a second lieutenant, second lieutenant also had one P but it wasn’t the same. There was a huge salary difference. And as an officer, I got paid 40 pounds, and a second lieutenant 60 pounds or something like that and the idea was that, if you did well, in three months’ time you would be confirmed a second lieutenant or you could be promoted, the way I used to look at it.

At a point you were an economist, a research economist with Central Bank.You jumped ship to join journalism profession, most people were surprised by this your gut considering the prominence of CBN?

Yes, Central Bank was the highest paying organisation at the time. They paid very well really. But, after some years, it got a bit boring, you know I was in the research department and balance of payment section also. But, after some time, it became a bit boring but somehow I have always wanted to be a journalist. It was there in my mind. You know, at some point, I decided to move over to the press. It was interesting that I took a salary drop. I was earning N5, 600 a year in the Central Bank, I went over to Daily Times with a salary of N4, 500. You know, I just wanted to and of course, I didn’t tell my senior brother then. By the time he heard, I had moved and took a lower salary because, I just wanted to be a journalist and I do not regret it in any way and I had a great career in journalism, something I found very excited, it’s been good to me.

Looking at your time, when you had the