This is a rare Nigerian with a rare insight into the workings of the Nigerian nation. Omowale Kuye, a man whose name at one point in Nigeria’s history became synonymous with budget-making, speaks with an uncommon candour. He turned 80 recently.

Chief Omowale Kuye

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But in this interview, he brings to the fore his experience in matters of budget-making.

He makes some startling revelations in this interview, the second part of which would be published later. But as you read Omowale Kuye, picture an old man sitting under the mango tree and telling tales by moonlight. The only difference is that this tale is about our country Nigeria, its leaders, their greed; and it is not fiction.

Most people who know Chief Omowale Kuye say he is synonymous with budget and planning. How did that come about?

You may be right. It came about through one man, Liman Ciroma, who was the Secretary to the Olusegun Obasanjo government during his first coming as military leader. I was at the Law School then. I was not a permanent secretary, I was only a director.

When was that?

That year was 1976-1977, that he became the secretary of Obasanjo’s military administration and I think Obasanjo had been complaining to him about the problem of budget; that he had been battling with budgetary matters and he wanted to get it right. Ciroma told him that he knew of a man who he worked with in the Ministry of Industries who is not only an economist but who also did a masters degree in Planning and Budgeting. But Ciroma was also quick to tell Obasanjo that the man does not take overruling easily. If you overrule him, you must present reasons.

He also told him anytime the man submits his papers to you on any issue, he would do his research thoroughly and give you three or four options and then zero in on the best option you should take. If you now overrule all the three or four options and tell him go and do it again (that’s the way they do it in civil service) the man does not and will not take that.

If you don’t want to take any of the four options he gave to you, you must give options why they are not acceptable and also tell him why the option you tell him to go and do is better than any of the four options he gave to you. He (Ciroma) told me that Obasanjo asked him: “Where is that man.”

He said it was Omowale Kuye.

Obasanjo then said I know him.

Then Ciroma asked, how?

Obasanjo said I know him to be a very stubborn human being.

That’s what Obasanjo said?

Liman Ciroma was telling me this.

He said he also knew me to be a thorough man. Ciroma said he did not know that Obasanjo knew me that much. Ciroma then told him that most of the programmes, projects implementation they did in industries, hardly is there anyone Kuye didn’t have an input. But the problem he has is that he doesn’t accept just being overruled.

Obasanjo then said they should go and call me. At that point in time, I was in Law School already on my way out of service because I was redeployed from Ministry of Industries where I worked with him to the Ministry of Labour.

When I got to the Ministry of Labour, I looked round and said what jobs would I do here because I wanted to be doing something. I couldn’t find anything on the ground that I should do. Then there was a strike. If you go on strike in the Oil Industry, you are regarded as a saboteur and you go to jail by their decree.

When I got there, I went to the permanent secretary and said well, Mr. Perm. Sec. I don’t see a reason why a human being says I withdraw my service and the next thing to do is to kill him or send him to jail. That is the only right he has left in him, to say no. Would you want me to do something for you to amend this position? He said why not?

I then told him to let us set up what I called industrial court. They would sue their employer in that court and have opportunity to present their case. And their employer would have their own reason so that it would not just be a question of the decree says you cannot go on strike and if you go on strike, you are going to jail. He said please go ahead.

Then I presented the memorandum to council for what we call today Industrial Court. What they used to have then was Industrial Arbitration Panel and their own case does not go to Arbitration Panel. What they say is that if you go on strike, you go to jail and I couldn’t accept that.

My minister then was another military man. He was a medical doctor. His name is Henry Adefowope. When I presented the memorandum at the council, everybody embraced it. They passed it and then I was the first person to go and locate an industrial court in Victoria Island. When I finished doing that in the Ministry of Labour, then I went back to my permanent secretary and said I didn’t see anything more to do.

I said, I had better get out of here, pick my gown and go to Law school. And that’s why I applied for one year leave to go to Law School without pay. It was from that Law School that Ciroma called me up and said the Head of State, Obasanjo, said he would like me to report at the Ministry of Finance and take over the Budget Department.

As the Director of Budget?

They had somebody they called their director of budget but there was no significant activity they were doing. That’s why I think Obasanjo said he wanted somebody there.

This same Obasanjo?

Yes, as a military Head of State. And when I reported there, my first budget was in 1978,

then I drew up the budget for him and how he would spend the money and let him know

that I would not release any provision I made on yearly basis, I would make it on

quarterly basis because I wanted to be sure that the oil they were selling, the price I

assumed while preparing the budget, was going to hold.

This was because I didn’t want to overdraw the account of government which we called ways and means at the Central Bank. When he heard this, he was flabbergasted; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. That how can somebody be this practical.

So, he sent for me and we went to argue the figure with him because he wanted to do as he used to do – he believes he’s the only one who knows every answer to every question.

Then Ciroma cautioned him and said you’d better call him and ask him because this man

doesn’t accept being overruled just like that.

Was there any situation where you were overruled? And if that had happened, would you have resigned? The way Ciroma had harped on the fact that the man doesn’t accept overruling except you convince him with superior argument.

If you don’t give me good reasons, I would resign.

As a civil servant?

Yes. I’m a civil servant but I would go away because I don’t consider myself at any material time as a civil servant who just pushes the pen and just write letter saying ‘I’m directed to…’. No. I consider myself that I have a contribution to make to this country and that was why I joined the civil service. When I finished from London School of Economics, I had the opportunity to be picked, without any application, to work at the World Bank.

They picked me because anybody supervised by my supervisor always has a job waiting for him - either we go to IMF or World Bank. They picked me that I should come and work for them but my wife’s mother and my own mother insisted that I must come back home. Then I had to come back home and told my wife that the two of us couldn’t be on salaried job.

I told her, you my wife, go and practice law so that while you can be bringing money home occasionally, I would bring money home monthly. We would then be in position to support our two children. When I came home, I was picked up to serve in the Ministry of Trade. From there, I started making my marks and later I went to the Ministry of Industries, Internal Affairs.

Even, when I was in the Internal Affairs, I wanted to make my mark. The Citizenship and Naturalization Act of 1970-1971, I drew it up because I believe anywhere I work, I’m not working for the fun of it but I was challenged in England.

How were you challenged in England?

I went for an interview in London and after the interview, the panel called me and said, Mr. Kuye, you have beaten everybody who came for this interview, all white, we don’t know whether any white would like to work under you. The job is there waiting for you but take note that if your country wants an expert in your field, they would ask us and we will send a less qualified person than you. Why do you want to be here?

And I said to myself: This is a fantastic challenge? I took up the challenge and along with my desire and that of my mother-in-law I came back home.

Back to the budget with Obasanjo. When he sent for you, what were the questions you asked him or which he asked you?

He said on expenditure you said we should make on xyz, that cannot happen and that one you said should be that small will become this big. I said, Mr. Head of State, everything I put there, they are all inter-related on one assumption - the revenue I expect.

Was the meeting in his office or in a relaxed mood at home?

Yes, during working hours. Ciroma, and I were there. He called the Minister of Finance then and two other people.

I said that thing you are looking at, is built on a lot of interrelationships. Once one falls, I have to go back and do it again.

Obasanjo then asked: Where are your interrelationships?

I put my hand into my pocket and brought out the interrelationship. When I brought it out, Obasanjo seized it from me.

He just grabbed it?

Yes, he just took it from me. I said no, no Oga you can’t take this one.

He then said if he couldn’t take this one, then you have to go and make photocopies. He ended up accepting everything I drew up for him.

This same Obasanjo?

Yes, this same Obasanjo. He then asked me to continue. If he had done it the way he used to do it with people, I would have been out.

That was in 1977?

Yes. I think as far as I’m concerned, I think I must make my mark wherever I have passed.

For how many years did you serve as the Director of Budget?

Not as openly, because when I joined, they thought that the Minister of Finance was the man who should prepare the budget for them. But as a director under the Ministry of Finance, I was Director of Budget, Revenue, and Expenditure. There was a Director of Budget who was an Igbo man and another Hausa man the Permanent Secretary, Finance. As soon as I got there, he said you are going to take over from that man who is a Director of Budget, but because of seniority in civil service, they asked me to serve as the Director of Revenue and Fiscal Measures.

How many years did you spend before you finally retired.

I took over as the head of Budget right from the time of Obasanjo.

Though, many people may not remember, Obasanjo was the first who took external loan. He was the first who took $2billion. The money was collected because we did not expect to earn enough to cover our foreign expenditure. So, I told him we would have a shortfall of $2billion if we must keep our import of goods and services at the level that were submitted to me.

In other words, would it be right to say that the $2billion was justifiable within the context of what you were to do then?

Yes. That time, there was no foreign exchange capacity that would have covered the volume and necessity of imports after I had reduced them to the bone. But, I advised him that he should not take it from the IMF and I fought other ministers not to take IMF loan because they would come and impose on you many conditionalties which impose poverty, additional hardship on everybody.

I told him to go to the London Money Market which was a better place. Remember, I had reduced the expenditure to the bone and we still had that shortfall.

When did you retire sir?

I retired by my age because I could no longer receive pension. In 1988, when I became 60, I retired but Ibrahim Babangida had taken over and refused my retiring from service.

He appointed me as the Director-General and that was the year they abolished the position of the permanent secretary and created that of director-general.

I wouldn’t say he did it because of me, but I know he didn’t want me to go. As permanent secretary, I couldn’t have continued because I was 60.

Today, some people have seen the budget as a form of conduit that politicians and civil servants use in just making money from the system. Every year, allocations are made and we find out that the projects for which they were made are either not started or executed at all. What gives room for this type of occurrence?

I don’t know when this started to happen. But during my own time, that would never happen. As the federal Director of Budget, as I said the relationship of all other factors has gone into the final budgeting. Therefore, in all projects, if they do not make a return of how they had spent the last quarter release, I won’t release that of the new quarter. So, there was no question of somebody waylaying my release or warehouse the money.

What I’m hearing now, they are news to me. The unspent money that I’m hearing now is mischievous. If I budget for a particular project, and that budget is not completed within the budget year, I will only budget the enough that they can spend that year and they would give a report of how far they have gone and what is left and that is the only thing you will find in the second year budget. If they tell me the budget is going to last five years, they would tell me how much it is going to cost each year and that is what I would budget for them.

But during Obasanjo’s eight year rule as a civilian, he was quoted as having said that he was not bound by whatever suggestions or advice given to him by his advisers. And one of the reasons why the House of Representatives wanted to impeach then was that he was not operating by the dictates of the budget. As an Act, if you are not following the provisions, then you are committing a breach. Now what do you think would have been responsible for his transformation from a military man who had all the military powers but could still abide by what you insisted on then, and to now refuse, in an era considered more civil to do things better?

First, offices are occupied by human beings. And the respect you give to an office depends on the human being that is there at that particular time. I told you earlier that if anybody overrules me without giving reasons, goodluck to you. I have my life to live and you have your office.

But let me also tell you that there is misinterpretation of the budget Act the way I read it this time. Budget is a proposal, an expectation of what you expect to earn. You might be right or wrong. Therefore, appropriation bill is what allows you to spend if the revenue flow justifies it and if not does it also provide for the loan to be taken in between.

If the revenue flow doesn’t justify it and there is no provision for taking loan, appropriation bill is a useless document because it is bill that says you should spend N100 when neither your revenue flow is N900 nor revenue flow plus the loan expectation is not up to N100. Therefore the question of any National Assembly insisting on refusal to implement budget as passed, I don’t think it can be sustained in court because the money is not a stock that people put somewhere. It is an expectation that they would come and if they don’t come, you cannot kill Obasanjo if he refuses to spend when money doesn’t come.

Two, the local councils do not collect rates, they look forward to the federation account, the question of managing your resources to cover as much grounds as are necessary for your people is no longer there because money is coming in deluge and all of us have lost our senses of looking for resources, that is revenue to support us. Let me tell you in 1954, when Free Primary Education was introduced in the western region, the capitation tax of N10 was imposed on every adult from age 19-29

When the programme was introduced, it succeeded; but there is a disconnect now. We are talking about chicken and egg, which one comes first? Because the debauchery has continued for too long, people are now disillusioned and are asking this question: All the money you say we should pay, are we going to get the value for it? And the government is saying, bring the money first and you will see the service. How can we tackle that in the present context going by the corruption that has taken over and the apathy that people now have?

My friend, we have to start somewhere.

We have to start facing the issue and you cannot face the issue if politicians collecting the money and spending it for their selfish interests and not on the projects that people would benefit from.

For example, I don’t know who will be able to justify the kind of allowances that the National Assembly men are collecting. If you go to Abuja at the National Assembly the garage, I don’t know the area it covers. You will see the most modern vehicles available in the world today. Those cars do not belong to businessmen, they belong to lawmakers.

They all belong to lawmakers.

Do they need such cares in this poor country, those kinds of up-to-date, state-of-the-art cars?

Do they remember that they come from villages where their people are walking bare-footed?

Do they remember when they collect what they call the constituency allowance, do they get there to spend it?

I hope that the figure they are brandishing around is not true that a senator is entitled to tens of millions, figures that I cannot even pronounce……(his voice fades away in disbelief),,,hmmmm.

If that is true, then, it means that the people who voted for them or the way they rigged themselves in(may be many people didn’t vote for them). If people voted for them, they would remember that they would go back and ask those people who are hungry and seeing them living in opulence.

With the way things are happening in recent times, virtually, every ill in the political terrain can be ascribed to Obasanjo. One, people are saying he has laid a bad example as the president, breached the rule of law, didn’t follow due process, not a good party man, in fact, everything is heaped on him. I’m sure you know Obasanjo to an extent, what would you say is his weakest point which allows people to see him the way they see him?

I think Obasanjo, in fairness to him, believes everybody must be whipped back to line.

Do you believe in that?

That is his belief, it is not my belief. I believe in talking to you to make you see the benefit in what I want to do.

In the light of current happenings, would you want to see any merit in that mentality?

Apart from that, Obasanjo also has some traits of wickedness.

With due respect, I don’t know if you can give an example. Like you said, he believes in whipping people to line. If it is for a particular good, then you can say no problem, but if he only begins to whip people in the guise of whipping them to line, and he seems to enjoy doing that, then that becomes wickedness. Can you give practical examples of this wickedness.

I have one very good example of his wickedness and that example all of you saw it but you may not pay attention to it. You know when they unconstitutionally removed Senator Rashidi Ladoja. It was Obasanjo who urged them to go and do it. When the system, the constitution, the law insisted that the boy was right and he won. He used his political kingpin who he now calls the father of the PDP to ensure that Ladoja didn’t come back. That is a real wickedness that I marked seriously against him

What steps did you take as a leader to check Obasanjo at that time? Or because you are not a politician you did not want to…?

(Cuts in) I am not a politician and I will never be because the way they play it is indecent.

But you were in G-34?

If you also know that I am one of those people who set up the organisation that finally brought about the PDP, which was the G34. Go and ask Alex Ekwueme. Then they said we were going to form a political party, I said no, let this organisation, G34, stay above politics so that anybody who is there if he knows that we are not competing with him, he would listen to our advice. But, once he identifies us as one of his competitors, the person will not yield; and you don’t surrender to your competitor.

So, what happened?

We went for a meeting in Abuja in Abubakar Rimi’s house and I insisted that this organisation would not be a political party. Rimi was mad with me that day saying if you don’t want resign and go.

I told him you cannot drive me away from the organization of which I am a principal founder. I said it is you who will go and look for a name for your political party. So they went out and look for a name and we took that to the larger meeting of G-34.

How many of you were in that caucus meeting?

We were sixteen in number. So, when we came back to Lagos, we held the meeting at Marina . So, we defeated their proposal; they had to change and look for a name for their party. They went for a name and the name they got was PDP.

And I, Omowale Kuye, is the only one out of the G-34 that did not join any political party or group.

On the day they got that name for their party, I was with Chief Bola Ige of blessed memory and I asked him why he chose not to join his colleagues at the MUSON Centre. He disclosed to me that that some people were preparing to package a particular individual to become the president in 1999, using this same PDP and that he would never be a party to that, that he would rather form a political party with other people of like minds.

Was it because you didn’t want that G-34 name to be used for partisan politics or you saw beyond what the others saw?

I saw that personal ambitions of all party politicians were terrible. I will give you reasons and that totally scared me.

When about five or six of us went to see Abubakar, the Head of State, my pleadings with him, which I also pleaded with G-34 was that please call Humphrey Nwosu to come and announce the results of that June 12 elections and let us get Abiola released and let him spend two years as president within which time we would have a new constitution. All the six people I went with opposed me. I didn’t know all of them were already nursing their own ambition.

Who were the other people with you then?

Ciroma, myself, Bola Ige, Alex Ekwueme and Jerry Gana, They said no,no. At that time, they already knew that I was not a politician. When we got back, I told them that we can not allow Abiola to languish in detention without doing anything about it. People must know we are doing something. At least, our first outing was very well embraced by all Nigerians. They were wondering how we were so bold to challenge Abacha.

Do you think but for death Abacha would have succeeded?

He would have succeeded brilliantly, if he was not dead. He was going to succeed, let no one be deceived.

If you look at Nigeria as a nation, the issue of poverty, underdevelopment, debauchery and treachery at the highest level of government, what do you think can rescue this country?

Nigeria can only be rescued if we do something. All the time we say God will do it. No. we have to do something. We Nigerians must do something like re-organising, re-orientating. If we continue going the way we are going, I don’t know where we will end up.

When I was coming now, the crowd of students that I saw trooping out of schools, I asked myself where we will find jobs for these people.

Everywhere you go, all the streets are overcrowded with students coming out of schools. As little number as we have today, we don’t have jobs, no food, in this rich country? Politics has done much damage than good.

I think what can rescue this nation is for young people like you not letting the party flag blind fold you into believing that you are doing the right thing when you know that your leadership is always stealing money but because you are sharing in the money, you don’t find fault in what hey are doing.

Ayo Adebanjo once said, people like you can’t be in Ibadan and the kind of leadership you have in Oyo State is there. They ask questions why are things like this?

Do you know the founder of Ibadan Elders’ Forum?...beats his chest…

It was when I discovered that Oyo State especially Ibadan has been thrown to the dogs. It was when I found that we don’t have elections here again, what we have is dogs putting themselves in office. We cannot blame Adedibu. He started in 1951 and that is the best politics (profession) he knows how best to handle. And all the leaders he served, he served them faithfully. He goes out there to achieve their purposes as he went out lately to achieve the purpose Obasanjo wanted him to achieve.

And he is a thriving politician?

He is thriving now but that time he was doing it like a service to the leaders. Those leaders are the bad people.

If a good leader had engaged the services of Adedibu, would he still be faithful.

If a good leader inherits Adedibu and tries to educate him that the way he is insisting that all opponents are maimed, that is not the way out, that will contradict his purpose in politics because his purpose is that you make sure they cannot come to the voting points.

Sir, what you are saying is that Chief Adedibu should not be blamed but those who engage him for selfish purposes?

Oh yes. All of them that complain about him today, none would say he has not used him.

Including Ladoja too

Yes. He was the one that defeated Yekini Adeojo by one vote which he organised. What Adedibu is doing now is like I want to use myself for myself. Now, he used all the weapons he knows how to use in collecting his children or his in-laws and put them in office and because of some of us who believe what he is doing is wrong we formed the Ibadan Elders Forum.

We don’t have anything against him, what we are saying is that killing and maiming ourselves is not good. And that integrity is our watchword and we insist that we want good governance not only for Ibadan but Oyo State. We are not tribalistic.

Do you want to throw your weight behind restructuring Nigeria in a way or do you think as it is now that things can still work?

Go and read the book on restructuring Nigeria where I did the review of Nigeria ’s constitution that Nigeria would never go on this way and succeed. I can’t agree with people saying there is nothing is wrong with the constitution, something is wrong with our people. Something is wrong with our constitution because this is the only country where you find the federal constitution incorporating the state constitution insisting on what the state must do.

Federal constitution should only be concerned with federal matters as it was originally proposed by the founders of Nigeria earlier on-the Awolowo, Zik, Sardauna of this world when they had specific constitution for each region.

With due respect, we would want you to grant our readers the benefit of having the Part 2 of this interview because we can’t cover everything; you have to travel now.

Yes, we have a deal. We shall do the Part 2, thank you.