Dr Sota Omoigui is a medical practitioner in California in the United States of America. He is one of the authors of ‘Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey!’, the national anthem recently discarded by the government to revert to the old national anthem, Nigeria we hail thee. In this interview by SAM NWAOKO, Dr Omoigui shares his thoughts on the action and other national issues.

Your position on the return to the old national anthem presupposes that you were not pleased by the decision. How do you feel about the decision to discard the national anthem you co-authored?

It was not the return of the colonial anthem that concerned me, but rather the reasons attributed for the return. What struck me the most was that the colonial anthem embodied more relevant values than our Nigerian anthem or that it would be a source of building patriotism. Our political leaders have no idea of the meaning of patriotism. Patriotism is love for or devotion to one’s country. The first two lines of Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey is a call to action. It calls on us to serve our fatherland with love and strength and faith. There is nothing more patriotic than that. The vast majority have no electricity, roads, pipe-borne water, healthcare and social amenities. Nigerians are worse off today than at the time of independence. They are not benefiting from any wealth, rather the politicians are. The minimum wage is being negotiated from N30,000.00 while each Senator earns about N30 million every month. Changing the anthem and expecting a different result is insanity.

Does what just happened evoke any memories… Perhaps of a Nigeria you had dreamt of as a young boy, or during your Kings College days or immediately after?

It evoked memories of a Nigeria that used to work in the years following our independence. A Nigeria with a vibrant civil service that constituted checks and balances even in the military regimes of Ironsi and Gowon… The destruction of that civil service by Murtala Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo sowed the seeds for the lack of accountability and generational decline that we experience today. We did not experience as much decline during our military regimes that always had some degree of discipline but with the advent of democracy and a constitution that gave civil and criminal immunity to governors, the nation is now awash with unchecked corruption with impunity at all levels.

It can be inferred from your article that you saw the action of the government as a betrayal of Nigeria’s independence. How is this so?

The colonial anthem was the right anthem at that time in our history. A nation should always move forward and not backwards. Arise O Compatriots is an anthem with lyrics written by Nigerians and music composed by a Nigerian. Our culture, music, movies, songs and dance are exported and celebrated by different races all over the world.  Radio stations and clubs in cities from Alaska to Argentina play Nigerian Afrobeat. Yet in the birthplace of that culture, the leaders reject their own anthem for a colonial anthem. Nigeria, the hitherto giant of Africa that led the liberation struggles of Africans to defeat apartheid and colonialism is now reduced to a midget crawling back and crying “mama” to her colonial master.

When you and the co-authors of the rested national anthem received the Citizenship and Patriot Award in 2023, did you envisage a day the same anthem for which you were honoured would be discarded the way it was done by the same government?

The award was announced but the ceremony did not hold and we never received it. It is no longer relevant now.

The reports out there suggest that neither you nor the others with whom you worked on the national anthem, received any of the prizes promised by the government for the effort. Could this be part of the reasons you spoke so harshly against the government action on the anthem?

Not at all. Since we did not receive anything material, there is nothing to lose except our patriotic pride. We wrote the anthem out of service to the country and not for any prize, award or remuneration. We love our country and it pains us to see a political leadership whose project for restoration of the values for our country is to revert to a colonial anthem instead of changing their corrupt ways. It symbolises a political class that has no vision for the country. And as stated in the bible: Where there is no vision, the people perish.

One of the things Nigerians found confounding in the national anthem matter was the speed and near secrecy with which the National Assembly handled the issues.  Why do you think the matter went that fast with the proponents of the idea and members of the National Assembly?

It is really confounding that there would be so much priority in going back to the colonial anthem instead of developing a national emergency plan to provide electricity, pipe-borne water, infrastructure and a livable minimal wage to our people. It is a symptom of the shallow thinking process of our political leadership.

You have said that the only people who should stand up and sing “Nigeria we hail thee” are looters, thieves, thugs, kidnappers, internet crooks and politicians who loot and rob the people’s community. Otherwise, if you don’t belong to any of these categories and sing it, you’re a liar because there’s nothing to celebrate.” How sustainable is this argument sir, considering children who would be compelled?

It would be cruel and unusual punishment to compel our children to sing this colonial anthem. Our children cannot hail a Nigeria where the minimum monthly wage is N30,000.00 and their parents have to work for three months to  purchase a bag of rice that costs about N100,000.00.  Our children cannot be forced to hail no electricity, roads, pipe borne water, dilapidated and unsanitary schools with no roofs or windows and them learning knee deep in flood waters under open skies, as rain beats the knowledge out of their heads. They cannot be forced to hail dilapidated health care systems including some of our university teaching hospitals that are death traps, where there are limited medications, few supplies or equipment and in many cases not even running water.  They cannot hail being terrorised by bandits and Boko Haram who kidnap them from school, hijack their parents on the highway and kill their parents when they go to their farms. 133 million Nigerians, or 63% of the population, most of them children should not hail being “multi-dimensionally poor,” meaning they suffer simultaneously from multiple disadvantages, including a lack of access to clean energy, housing, health care, water and sanitation, according to the November 2022 National Bureau of Statistics Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) survey by the Federal Government of Nigeria of nearly 57,000 households. That’s up from 54% in 2018, and more than any other country, including India, which has seven times more people. Our youth whose skeletons are bleached dry by the hot desert sun of the Sahara desert and whose bodies lie at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea, where they died trying to escape the hopelessness and lack of opportunity of their own not dear native land, are not alive to hail their country.

You have consistently spoken against corruption and related woes in our country. Why do you think fighting corruption – in all its ramifications – in Nigeria has been a mirage?

The destruction of the civil service by Murtala Muhammed and Obasanjo, with the forcible retirement of 10,000 civil servants in two months, removed a cadre of honest men and women that were the engine of government and served as checks and balances to the political and military class.

There used to be accountability and consequences for betraying the public trust. The political class has deliberately engendered a system that destroyed all the checks and balances and allows them to steal with impunity. They have set up a political system that requires party affiliation and excessive cost of nomination forms such as N100 million for presidential nomination. This constitutes a road block for honest men and women. Corruption occurs at the intersection of temptation and opportunity. You must separate the man /woman from the money. Now we live in a nation awash with fraud with impunity and no one accountable for their actions. Political offices are purchased by the highest bidders who pay using the spoils of their pillage and plunder. Justice is dispensed to the highest bidder by our cash-and-carry judges.  Many Nigerians see the greed, looting and pillaging by their leaders, have no electricity, no opportunities for economic empowerment and then resort to fraud, internet scams, prostitution, banditry and kidnapping to make ends meet.

You advocated for audit of assets of public office holders and sanction where necessary. What, in your opinion, is the kind of sanction that could deter Nigerian public officials from helping themselves with public funds?

Nigeria is in dire straits, and in the worst economic quagmire in 30 years, 25 years of which has been in a democracy in name only but a kleptocracy in deed – a government of looters for looters and by looters.

A Nigeria hindered and brought to its knees by a lack of accountability and corruption with impunity in all branches of government in the executive, legislature and judiciary, and at all levels – Federal, state, local government. The cancer of corruption has metastasised to the parastatals and the private sector. The nation needs emergency measures. We have no other country. It is time to ring the alarm bells and turn our country away from the precipice of disaster. And we need to do it now. Our population increases by 7.2 million a year and we are projected by the United Nations Population Division to be the third most populous country on earth, with a population of 730 million  – right behind China – by the year 2100. The approach of the EFCC in going after political office holders after the money has been stolen is not effective. They are able to frustrate that process by compromising cash and carry judges in the judiciary, who dispense justice to the highest bidder. Corruption occurs at the intersection of temptation and opportunity. You must separate the man from the money. We must empower our civil service, provide them a living wage and hold them accountable for any collusion in the diversion of funds by political leaders. Those who commit such crimes must be prosecuted and jailed. Transparency and Accountability must be the order of the day. What we charitably call ‘Cost of Governance’ is nothing but waste, fraud and abuse that constitute Theft of Governance.  The Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission should be directed to terminate the unconscionable salaries and allowances of our senators and reps. All of them should henceforth be on a civil service wage of a director and not to exceed N450,000.00 a month. It is untenable for our minimum wage to be one of the poorest in the world at N30,000.00 ($20.00) a month while our senators collect one of the highest salaries in the world at N30 million ($20,000.00) a month. Any member that fails to reject and return these excess salaries and allowances affirms that they are not there to serve Nigeria but for Nigeria to serve them. All of the N167 million SUVs allocated to them should be returned and sold. Any Assembly member who cannot provide his own transportation to get to work should resign from office. All allowances including constituency allowances should be proscribed. Immunity and unaccountable security votes for governors must be terminated with immediate effect. Double dipping by former governors who receive pension while receiving salaries and emoluments as senators should be terminated immediately. We need senators who are elected for public service and not for the public to service their accounts.

The resources of our nation can no longer be hijacked by a dubious system of patronage. There is a need for a civilian Office of Inspector General for each ministry at a national level and in every state and the Federal Capital Territory, overseen at the Federal level by a civilian Federal Office of the Inspector General with a mission to cut out waste, fraud and abuse. Their responsibilities will be to oversee auditors to audit all contract awards and no funds will be disbursed for any capital or recurrent expenses without prior audit.  This will apply to all federal and state ministries, agencies, parastatals, universities and all public institutions. The civilian Office of the Inspector General (OIG) should be manned by honest men and women, to have an oversight function and root out waste and fraud at all federal, state and local government institutions, departments and agencies.  Officials of the OIG will have the powers of the police to arrest and prosecute all those persons found to be aiding and abetting fraud and waste.

The Office of the Inspector General will implement an immediate audit of all assets of all public, judicial and institutional office holders in the last 30 years. Assets that cannot be accounted for by their honest income will be seized and they should be prosecuted and sent to jail. All ill gotten wealth seized will be put back to provide electricity and pipe-borne water, develop our infrastructure, and provide economic empowerment, security and living wages for our people. A rising tide lifts all boats. All corruption that rises to the level of economic sabotage should be punished by the death penalty as done in China. Those who steal from the people’s commonwealth with such rapacious impunity, destroy lives no less different than the murderers and armed robbers like the notorious Oyenusi gang that we executed at the Bar Beach in the Nigeria of my youth. To modify a phrase from Yakubu Gowon, – To save Nigeria now is a task that must be done.

A school of thought believes that Nigeria was designed to benefit some foreign powers and certain levels of the country’s leadership. This argument was revived recently when the country reverted to the colonial anthem. How do you see this contention?

The impoverished conditions that exist for the majority of our people today constitute modern slavery. The only thing lacking are the shackles. Foreign powers are not responsible for our condition. It is the greed and selfishness of our own political leaders that enslave us and have taken our country in an inexorable slide backwards, in all indices of human development. Harriet Tubman, the heroine of the underground rail road freed a hundred slaves and could have freed a thousand more if only they knew that they were slaves. Arise O Compatriots!!! Nigeria’s call obey!!!