- Jogor Boss, Engr. FEMI BABALOLA Reveals
Engr. Femi Babalola, the CEO of Jogor Event Centre and Jogor Hotel Ibadan, recently clocked 61. Last week, the debonair businessman bared his mind on the state of the nation, politics and his private life. He spoke with City People’s Dare Adeniran (08057639079), alongside other two media personalities, on why he feels the economic reform of President Bola Tinubu-led administration is not working. How he has been able to build a business empire, and consistently been on political and social radar over the years.
Below are the excerpts of the interview which took place at Babalola’s one hundred and one rooms luxury hotel in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
How would you describe your mood at 61, especially with the current situation of things in the country?
I’m not happy. I thank you for wishing me happy birthday. Even though you didn’t bring gifts like the 3 wise men. But on a serious note, I’m not happy because as far as am concerned solution we eventually used or we are exploring is not the only available option. There are better options that could have lessened or even eliminated the suffering of the people, and would have provided a better solution.
I mean when this government came in I want to believe that their two concerns were round tripping, disparity in exchange rate. And what causes disparity in exchange rate? People access forex and they go and sell at premium. It’s so easy. We know the number of banks we have in the country. We know the owners of the banks. Call them and warn them. So anybody that distort moving forward you revoke their licences. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo did it. He did it even to his friend, Otunba Subomi Balogun of the blessed memories. The guy that owned UBA then was also affected. It brought a kind of sanity to the forex exchange market.
So, why was that a problem? Why must we follow what World Bank wants us to do? What is our major source of inflow? We have diaspora remittance, we have forex coming from sales of petroleum products, exportation of goods and services from the citizens of the country.
Let’s look at the 3 critical points one after the other. For the petroleum products, we have been saying all these since Buhari was there that production of crude oil had gone down drastically. Even the areas where they are trying to rev up production theft is not allowing the oil companies to enjoy the outputs of their labor. Because as they are producing the boys are stealing the crude. They are puncturing pipes everyday. Are you telling me that it’s beyond government efforts to stop that?
So because some people are stealing oil, which is the duty of security agencies, the whole country must suffer for that? It doesn’t make sense. It’s like looking for an easy way out. Are we saying that we can’t man the pipelines in the country effectively? What is the length of pipelines we have in the country? Where are they located? Were they not laid by human beings? Are we saying we can’t man them effectively to prevent incessant bursting of the pipes and stealing of crude?
The other area is the issue of remittances. We knew that whatever Emefiele must have done he had this policy then that he tried to encourage people to remit money into the country by the people in diaspora. And it was working. They were given naira for a particular dollar brought in. But somehow somebody just stopped it. So because we need the forex to fight and defend our naira.
The country as it is now is not production friendly. Some people are saying it’s to encourage export. All these people talking ask them if they have ever run any industry in their lives. Let them come and ask us that are running Industries. Do they think it’s that easy? There was a day I bought a 20 tones of shea butter from Oyo North, and my truck was seized by the police. It was seized simply because one of the headlights was bad. The headlight could have been bad 2 kilometers before that spot. It could have been bad 500 metres before the spot. It could have been a week earlier. But did that justify confiscating a truck bringing raw materials to a factory to produce for export?
Another one is the issue of security. If we can solve the issue of security in this country, there will be more production. People would go to the farm. I’m a farmer so I know what am talking about. A lot of farmers had left the farms. Am even referring to the Southwest not the North, where there are incessant killings of farmers. It’s not as pronounced as the North here but despite that farmers in the Southwest have left the farms because we don’t have security.
So government needed to have rev up security, giving people assurance that you can go on and produce. That would have helped us. Then we went to the issue of subsidy removal. The first question is, is the subsidy good for the economy? I would say it depends on the way you look at it.
Something has to be subsidized. There is multiply effect of subsidy. Are you subsidizing education? Are you subsidizing health? Are you subsidizing electricity? Government has to subsidize something, otherwise there will be social insecurity in the country. There could be problem at the end of the day, the problem will go back to the government.
Again, whenever the issue of subsidy comes up, we have always been talking about smuggling to the neighboring country. So because of the smuggling Nigerians should suffer? What is the work of Customs? If the Customs is not doing their job Nigerians must be punished for that? It’s not the duty of Nigerians to suffer for Customs laxity.
I mean we all see the effects. If this interview were to take place in 2023 July, August or September we would be talking about anticipatory effects. Now we have seen it. So nobody can come to me and say is it working? Economics has gone beyond that.
The guy from World Bank saying rubbish that it’s good for the country. Why didn’t America go through that route during the 2007 recession? Why did America government say that they couldn’t sit down and allow their companies to fold up, and started giving them money? If that recession had happened in Africa the World Bank people would have told us that we should allow the economic forces take it cause. They wouldn’t have allowed the government to support any company. America said forget about economy, we are talking about people’s lives. So which economy are we talking about that somebody said we should practice it for 20 years?
If you were to be President Tinubu what would you have done to address the issue of corruption, considering the fact that it’s a systemic problem. Would you step on toes?
The people stealing are not the people that put you in power. The people stealing are stealing for themselves. Anybody that has helped you to that position would have an understanding. The bottom line is that they want to be part of government. They want to protect their economic life. If their economic life is jeopardizing the overall benefit of the country then you have to cut it off and make alternative for them. A company can’t be producing 20,000 barrel of oil and at the end of the day they won’t be able to export 10,000. The remaining 10,000 had been stolen along the line and you fold your hands.
I think we tend to forget at times that we are not more in 1980 when Nigeria was the only country in Africa producing oil. Now that virtually all the countries in Africa are now producing. The situation has become highly competitive. So we just have to sit tight and know what we are doing. The simple solution to Nigeria’s problems is just about putting the right people in positions of authority.
Do you think stepping on toes has really helped the country? Considering the activities of EFCC over the years. Don’t you think there is an underlining problem that the government is not looking at?
I don’t feel so. There is nobody talking about EFCC and other agencies that they shouldn’t do their jobs. So far they are legally established. Yes, I have always believe that Nigeria has a systemic problem. So we have to really address the system, and that time is now. We really have to sit down and talk to ourselves and say that enough is enough, this country has to move forward. Because if we are not careful we’ll lose this country. That is just the problem. We have to evaluate so many things. Is it the constitution? Is it the civil service rules? Is it how budgets are presented or executed? We just have to be sincere with ourselves. Are we practicing the system that suite us? And I would say no.
It seems to be easier for politicians to criticize from outside then change once they get to power?
You journalists are the problem. I have said this several times. Yes, I believe the electorates have their own faults too. But I believe that journalists are not helping to sieve the politicians very well. You need to help the people know those on the table. Out of 5 bad candidates one would be best out of them. The journalists are not doing that. If you want to employ a driver I’m sure the first question you will ask him is, where did you drive last? Where is your driver’s licence? Why did you leave your last employer? What are your qualifications? How many people have asked such questions from politicians? Don’t we have people who have not done anything tangible for the society as governors? Don’t we have people that don’t even have local knowledge of anything representing a community? Don’t we have people that have never lived in a community representing same community? What did the journalists do? Did they carry out survey to let people know that this man, out of these 4 people, has never lived in this your constituency before? Have you come out to say this man contesting has never worked before or has the prerequisite knowledge? Don’t let all these information come out at the tribunal. Is it not embarrassing that it’s at the tribunal that they will say this man did not go to school. The certificate he or she presented is this or that and they had passed through the system.
