Chief Emeka Dike, author of ‘The Inverted Pyramid’, a book on the socio-political and economic problems facing Nigeria, in this conversation with EMMA EMEOZOR, accuses the ruling class of mismanagement, selfishness and clinging to power.
What is your assessment of campaigns and elections in Nigeria? 
What is wrong with our political system is also what I addressed in my book. Why is it that even the opposition party is made of the same old names that we have heard over the years? So, it is not a new political party. It is the same old political class fighting amongst themselves for Nigeria’s cake. Some of them have defected from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), why? What they are basically saying is that the leaders in PDP today are eating alone and they (the defectors) are being cheated. So, they move to an opposition party to say we want to get a piece of the pie.
Nigeria is not creating new political leaders and when it does, they are sycophants or they are representatives of the same old brigade operating with the same old ideology. If you say you want to join politics to fight them, it is not easy because they have made so much money from the system.
How can you come in as new political force because there is what we call in economics, “Barriers to Entry?” There are natural barriers to entry, one of which is money. You need a lot of money to contest election in Nigeria because you need the deep pocket to buy votes. Even where you have sponsors, they will give conditions, for example, on award of contracts.
Would you blame the low performance of political leaders on poverty of ideas?
Going by my book, the “Vested Interests”…what it tries to show is that we know what to do, that there is a deliberate attempt by the “Vested interests” to do wrong things. Though, what they are doing is wrong, they are benefiting from it. It is not a factor of lack of knowledge. If you look at our development programmes, we have beautiful plans; we have beautiful ideas as to how to take Nigeria forward. For example, when General Abdulsalami Abubakar took over the government after late General Sani Abacha died, he read a beautiful speech, it is an example of what I’m talking about, he outlined all the problems Nigeria had: infrastructures and other problems facing the country. And he said in order for us to solve these problems, we need to withdraw money from our foreign reserves to execute projects. But when President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power, he claimed that there was no money in the nation’s coffer. He said that he inherited a bankrupt government. Our leaders say the right things but do the wrong things because, like I have said earlier, they are benefiting from their actions, hence the “invested interest”, their interest is to keep Nigeria fixed where it is because, for example, they don’t want the mass of the people to have steady electricity supply, because if they do, they won’t be able to sell diesel, if they have good roads they will be able to communicate, businesses will abound and progress, then people will not be at the mercy of the system. So, today, few people are making money from this country while majority of the citizens are suffering, courtesy of the inefficiencies of the leaders.
If you address these inefficiencies and if things are based on merit, the country will begin to develop and grow. Then, it will become difficult for people to steal because there will be accountability. So, I don’t believe that the problem is that of lack of political education.
Illiteracy is sometimes blamed for the ‘docile’ nature of the Nigerian people. What is your opinion? 
For the very simple reason that we don’t need to go to school to know, we don’t have running water; we don’t have light; we don’t have good infrastructure; that we don’t have employment…we don’t need to go to school to know these things, these are the things the ordinary man is experiencing on a day to day basis.
So, I think it is not because people are not educated enough to understand the problem(s). I think the issue is what you mentioned which is that Nigerians are inertia. Nigerians are very reluctant to take action. They know the problem(s); they are suffering the problem(s); they are articulate enough. But they have the inability to address those problems in terms of action. And I think that it is very interesting issue because recently I saw a You Tube address of the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, where he was addressing young people and he talked about the “Vested Interests” and the fear of overcoming the “Vested Interests.”
And my book “The Inverted Pyramid” is entirely about the “Vested Interests.” I defined the “Vested Interests” in my book. So, if the CBN governor is talking about the fear of the “Vested Interests”, then, that corresponds exactly with what I was talking about in my book. It is not so much that we don’t know the problem(s) but we have the fear of confronting those elements in society that we believe are responsible. It is these elements (or group of people) we have termed as the “Vested Interests” for lack of a better expression. For the purpose of clarity, the “Vested Interests” are those who have interest in the country remaining the way it is.
In other words, those people who are benefiting from the country as it is; those who are benefiting from the fact that our system is not efficient; those benefiting from the inefficiencies in government; those benefiting from corruption; those benefiting from patronage; those who are put in office whether they qualify or not (whoever they may be and wherever they may be.) Interestingly, they cut across all the ethnic groups, you can’t say it is a north or south or west or east problem because the “Vested Interests” can come from anywhere. This group of people is less than five percent of the population. The question is what are the other 95 percent of the society, who are not benefiting from the system, as it is today, doing? This becomes the issue.
Would you advocate the Arab Spring type of revolt in Nigeria?
Well, we had our own oil subsidy strike in January 2012, which was triggered by the increase in petroleum prices. The youths and others were active. They took the government unaware, it was a serious movement.
Unfortunately, it lacked the correct leadership. Somebody told them to go home to refresh and return to the venue. And before they could return, the army had occupied the square. There is nowhere in the world where protesters stage a strike and go home to refresh. They were let down by their leaders. But I think Nigeria learnt a lesson from that experience.
If they come out again and somebody tells them to go home to refresh, will they go? They will not. So, I think for anybody to say that in Nigeria, we can’t stage a massive protest, is not true.

‘Ruling class crippling Nigeria’s democracy’