On January 3, 2017,
Prof Anya Okoh Anya, former Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Economic
Summit and President of the Nigeria Academy of Science shall have
completed the
Biblical three scores and 20 years. But even as he will be clocking 80, he
believes that he has not done anything special to join the privileged group of
octogenarians.
At 7, he lost his
father who by all standards then was very wealthy and it seemed the world had
ended for the family. It was like falling from grace to grass but God had a
different plan for him and the family. The experience of that turbulent period
is now history, and it is not surprising that for him, he has come thus far by
the grace of God.
The man who
literally has seen it all both in the academia and public life in this
interview, spoke on his journey so far, the state of the nation among others.
Barely two weeks
away, you would be 80 years on earth. How do you feel and what does it mean to
attain that age?
I live for each day.
First of all is that God’s grace has been important in my life, from the
beginning until now. This means, God’s grace has been there in my entire
career. From the various positions that I have held, there is none that I
applied for. I would not say I have never applied but somebody will just come
and say, there is a job and we just want you to do it. From my first job
immediately after secondary school, the principal just called me and another
classmate of mine to go and teach. From
then, it’s been like that even when I became the Director General of NLNG. It
was a group of the Chief executives who directed me on it. I remember that, on
the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), you will be expected to be an
economist but in my own case, it was not so. This is because at that time, we
had worked together and they had seen me at work in the vision 2010. So, it’s
been like that, the most important thing is that God has been in charge of my
life and I am grateful to him. If you
look at me, there are many people who are younger than me but I look stronger
than them. I have not done anything special and that is why I say it is the grace
of God.
In all of these
years you have spent on earth, what are your unique memories?
They are many. My
father was a notably wealthy person; he died in the early 40s. Then he had a
lorry; you can imagine an Igbo man who had a lorry in 1940 to 1941 how wealthy
he was. But suddenly, he died. I was
about seven going to eight years then. If you were born and you start
struggling, in the struggling, you will learn. But if you were born as you
people will say with silver spoon in your mouth and suddenly, the silver spoon
is dragged out of your mouth, life is more challenging for that person who
started life comfortably and suddenly he is faced with destitution. Where do
you begin from? Many people did not survive that but through God’s grace, we
were surviving because even going to school became a challenge. My mother took
charge of that and the rest is history. But then, it would also not have been
possible if I did not get scholarships. From my third year, I got the Calabar
County Council’s Scholarship. From that third year in secondary school, I went to the University on the Federal
Government scholarship. When I finished in Cambridge, I hear there was a mail
for me from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Someone met me there and said he had a message
for me and I said for me?, he said yes that he has a message for me from Nnamdi
Azikiwe. And I said me?, what could the president of Nigeria, the
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria want with me?. He said he wants me to come to Nsukka when I
finish with my PhD, so, when I finished, I went straight to Nsukka.
What is the
difference between the lives of your contemporaries and people of today?
First, people now
want too many good things and, the
system that brought them in, might be taken for granted but if you work hard
and begin to do good in what you are doing, success will come naturally. The
success will not come because of the method but because of God’s grace. People
are dying not realizing that God’s grace is important and the greatest gift for
me is contentment. Whatever situation
you find yourself, do the best you can and give thanks to God. We have a very
simple motto in my family, in all things the best and for God. That has been my
guardian and what my children also have imbibed. You see, unless you recognize
God’s providence and grace in one’s life
, you will then get to a point where your children will make you think you are
a little god but the more you know God, the more you become humbled because of
what you have seen Him do in other people’s lives. So my Christian belief is
important, commitment to the values of Christianity and obedience to God are
also important.
You talked about a
personal encounter with God, would you like to share it?
It is not the kind
of dramatic encounter. Just that, I can remember the passage in Ephesians, it
was the JB Philips edition, and you know it is in simple English. It just came
out then and with the little money I had, I bought one. I was reading it and got
to a passage in Ephesians and it was just as if the Bible opened up and I
understood things that I did not understand before. So, I won’t say it is the
way people tell you they had this or that experience. No, it was not that kind of dramatic experience and
also, it was because I had grown in my Christian faith cumulatively over that
period. So, I cannot say it was this or that experience or series of
experiences, no. But I also know that God has been faithful because on my 50th
birthday, very early in the morning, I
went to the church and laid on the altar and looked at my life at that
time. When I became professor in 1973,
it was eight years after my PhD in 1965 and three of those eight years were in
the jungles of Biafra. I was in Biafra then, I worked and served. If you remove
three from the eight years, I became a professor five years post doctoral. Only
God made that possible and I was not the most brilliant. So, there is a lot to
be thankful for.
You already had a
PhD before the Biafran war, and you were involved in the war?
Yes, I got my PhD
from the University of Cambridge in 1965 and I came back August same year, and
went straight to Nsukka. You can see the hand of God. I can name five different incidences during
the war in which I had no business but to be dead including going to somewhere
in the boat with the late Colonel Ogbugo Kalu who was the Commander of Brigade
section in Port Harcourt. Where we were going to, we did not know that the
Nigerian Troop had infiltrated the area and they started shooting. The boat we
were in just went on speeding and then we got out. The second incident took
place in Umuahia. In fact, whenever I am going to Umuahia, I still remember the
spot. We took cover when the plane was doing the bombing, they were in the
plane in the air shooting, where I took cover; the person who took cover with
me when I looked up, had been shot. It could have been me, that’s the hand of
God. There are so many things one can use to illustrate it.
What are your
reflections on the current state of the nation?
I delivered two
lectures last year, one was at the University of Lagos, the Eni Njoku Memorial
Lecture and the title was ‘Nigeria and the future: the Challenge of National
Development and National Integration in the age of change and transformation.
Remember it was in August last year and Buhari had just just been sworn in as
president. I was saying that development and integration are the challenges
before the country. I made my suggestion to him on how to approach it. In
October last year, I also gave the Emeka Anyaoku Lecture ‘Nigeria, the
Continued Search for Leadership. Leadership is the central issue.
Even though you did
not read economics but you are considered an expert in that field having held
several positions in that field. What is your take on the almost prostrate
state of the nation’s economy?
Human behavior is
what determines the nature, type and even the quality of the economy that you
have. If you remember that, you then know that as a leader, managing the
economy starts from the way you manage the behavior of the citizens. What do I
mean by that? You see in 2014, Nigeria was still being touted out
internationally as one of the emerging economies to watch. In 2014, I think one
of the rating agencies was suggesting that up to $14b investment was heading to
Nigeria. In 2016, we cannot even get up to $1b coming into Nigeria. So, why the
sudden change? The reason is simple. Once we came with the drama of change and
corruption even though nobody can justify corruption, there is no country where
there is no corruption. How you manage and tell it becomes important. If you
deal with corruption without all the drama, people will know you are doing
something about it and will have confidence in you. If you are doing it that way,
first is that, the internal people will say, wait let’s see what will happen.
They will hold back their money and will not invest and then, the economy
starts feeling it. The outsiders now follow the people inside and are not
prepared to take a risk because they hear things like my people are all rotten
and untrustworthy. If you are an outsider, would you invest your money in such
a country? In other words, the way we present our story is important. If you a
carry a story in negative terms, it has its consequences and if you carry it in
positive terms-yes, there are problems but we are meeting the challenges, it
also has consequences. So, the question now is, why the dramatic change in our
circumstances in less than two years?.
It’s because of the way we tell our stories. The economy responds to signals
and something that tells you what is likely to happen. And all these signals
are coming from human behaviors particularly from the leadership. Until the story changes to more positive
news, I am afraid we are not going anywhere. We talk about exchange rates and
inflation, they are only summations of particular types of human behavior. When
people withhold what they have, money becomes scarce and everything goes up. So
the economy I am afraid will go through more difficult times until we change
our stories. And the story is to say look, yes we have made mistakes but this
is a country that has great potential and we are going to make sure that we fix
the economy and we are going to mobilize everybody. Mobilizing is not about
lecturing you. As some Christians will tell you, the best sermon is the one you
give with your life, where people see you, they will believe what you are
saying because they see it in your life. Our leaders have to tell us a better
story than they are telling us. We are watching them, if they say one thing and
begin to do another, people will take a cue from that.
There have been lots
of ethnic division among the people of Nigeria since the inception of this
government. What is your reaction?
I believe is a
matter of signals, as I pointed out in the first lecture, the Eni Njoku
lecture. When you are working for integration, you first identify the things
that people share and the things that make them different. You then try to
reach the common ground, then the two will now work together in those things
that are common to them and as they do that, confidence returns, trust rebuilt
and you start greater cooperation. That is how a nation emerges. The first 32
appointments by Buhari, not one person from the South East was found
appointable. So, what signals do you send? The South East is easy to illustrate
and the same principle is applicable to people in the North. There are
northerners outside this government that are not satisfied with what is
happening. They do not think they are having their due. When you say that you
have to be dealing with the 97 percent that voted for you, people take note of
that. As I said at the national conference, between 2011 and now, there is no
part of Nigeria that I have not been to. I was in the presidential and post
election violence in 2011. I was one of the four members of that committee that
had the privilege to interview Buhari in his house in Kaduna on that occasion
and he impressed me with his passion for the country. When we were going out,
he told his PA to get my number and for me to give him my number too. But that
fervent passion that I saw is not evident in his government. As I said at the
conference, there is no part of Nigeria that does not have a problem. None, but
there is not part of Nigeria that can solve its problems on its own. We need
each other to solve our problems.
Let’s be honest;
this country can only be rebuilt by everybody joining in. Three weeks ago,
there was a Christian meeting in Ibadan, Yorubas, ordained Ministers were
asking God for forgiveness because of what they have done to the Igbo people;
they had a vision. They said that the attitude of the people to the Igbo has
hindered God’s plan for Nigeria, at the meeting. It was said that until the
Igbo have justice that Nigeria was going nowhere. So, there are a lot of things
happening at the spiritual level in Nigeria as we speak.
SUNNEWS
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