It doesn’t matter whether you call him Professor or Chief or High Chief, his name, Isaac Zeb-Obipi, rings a bell anywhere given his broad-based social impact, scholarship, and versatility in diverse fields of human endeavour. Chief (Prof) Isaac Zeb-Obipi, the Dean of Students Affairs (DSA), Rivers State University (RSU), Nkpolu Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, is a Professor of Management with research interest cutting across Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations. He has been Head of Department in Management Department for five years, and afterwards, Head of Department of Office and Information Management Department for some two years. He was elected National Secretary of the University’s Alumni Association after serving as Vice President of its Rivers State branch. Again, he is currently serving out his second tenure as President of the RSU’s Senior Staff Club, a platform through which he has been able to bring the gown to town. Since November 1, 2015, when he got appointed as Dean of Student Affairs (DSA) by the then Professor Blessing Didia’s administration, he has remained as DSA till date, spanning through three Vice Chancellors – Professor Blessing Chimezie Didia, Professor Opuenebo Binya Owei and Professor Nlerum Sunday Okogbule – ostensibly because of his skill in deploying a whole lot of crisis management techniques in the resolution of students’ imbroglio and unassailable creativity in leadership.
In 2016, he introduced electronic voting for undergraduate students’ election and in 2018 took it up to Post-Graduate Students election. In 2021, he served as sub-Chairman of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) election where his team for the first time migrated the election of the INC to electronic voting, making it the first pan-ethnic group in West Africa to so conduct an election. He is also Ogulacha II, the Chief and Head of Ogulacha War Canoe House in Ogoloma Chiefdom in Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. In this exclusive interview with the Publisher of Kristina Reports, Godswill Jumbo, Prof. Isaac Zeb-Obipi analyzed the issues under review currently in the Nigerian polity, proffering solutions and highlighting what should constitute the focus of youths in the country.
What are your thoughts on the role of traditional rulers in grassroots development? I mean, how can traditional institution, communities’ leaders in different categories bring impact, drive development in the local areas? Recently we saw His Majesty, King Ateke Tom bringing no less a person than the Governor of Rivers State to commission the Okochiri internal roads.
Now, indeed, before I became a Chief I had my thoughts on the role of traditional rulers in development. I have a paper on Grassroots Development, Rural Development, Grassroots Mobilization, and Advocacy. There is also a paper of mine on Poverty Alleviation, the role of traditional rulers and it is a chapter in a book detailed by Sofiri Peterside. It is even on research. In the paper I advocated the roles traditional rulers should play in the development of their communities. In fact, recently, I wrote a chapter on soon to be published book by Charles Ogan relating to the roles of retired Admiral Fingesi who is on his retirement now and had reasons to play some roles and even took up another traditional leadership stool in Lagos and so in his biography I was asked to write a paper on the roles of traditional rulers. This is an area I’m very conversant with. The traditional rulers are mostly well qualified, well educated, most of them technocrats before up on retirement and became traditional rulers. So they are well vast in the responsibilities of developing the respective communities and the traditional institution is the closest to the people, in fact it is easier to get to a chief (by way of access) than to get a councillor of a ward, that’s how it is. The councillors or other political leaders are seasonal but the traditional rulers are always there with the people, so my argument is that they are well disposed to performing leadership roles, developmental roles in their various community; this roles include making their people to embrace government programs, giving feedbacks to government on the needs of the people and how government policies are faring there. The roles also include networking and bringing resources for the development of their people, leveraging on their expertise and their connections and their knowledge for the enhancement of the wellbeing of the people. So I have no doubt in my mind that the traditional rulers have roles to play in the development of our people and the case you sited is a very typical one. The case of His Majesty, King Ateke Tom, in fact it is (referring to Okochiri in Okrika LGA, River State) the fastest growing community in Wakirike Nation. If you go to Okochiri, it is like a city right now, with good and well interconnected roads, there are institutions thriving there, in fact recently Heritage Bank just established an ATM point there and very soon we may likely have a bank there, that’s how it is. They just developed a modern market for them through the member representing Okrika in the State House of Assembly. And all this are happening as a result of his connection, as a result of the strategic role he is playing in the development of his people. So, indeed I share your views and I want to substantiate that position that traditional rulers have roles to play. Some of them are playing these roles very well. Although others are not. You can find the same thing in the academia, in politics, in industries, there are people who are doing well and there are those who are not doing well. So that is the instance of the traditional ruler-ship in the development of their people.
Do you agree that security should be part of these roles? Because looking at the plight of Nigeria currently, there are all kinds of security challenges, banditry, herdsmen attacks, Boko Haram, and so forth. So added to these roles you have defined for traditional rulers, will you add security?
Indeed, taking from the plank that the traditional rulers are the closest to the people, they will need to identify those in their community that are of criminal tendencies, they will be able to identify. So ordinarily they have roles to play. In the accent days before modernity, before the civil institution of police and other things, the traditional rulers maintained law and order, in fact the mention of the name of the traditional rulers inspire fear in the minds of subjects. Those were the days when a traditional ruler can even just take a walking stick and point at you and you get scared of that for provoking the traditional ruler. Those were the days when they will just put you at the center of the market square and take something to round you up as a way of discipline. That was it we didn’t have the police then but our people were well disciplined. But you know with individual rights emerging, with the emphasis on individualism, of course we have developed modernity and all the rest people can ignore a traditional ruler. In fact, when the traditional ruler makes a judgment, they could refuse his judgment and take him to court, so there are these disrespects for traditional rulers and that was the beginning of the detonation of security in our communities. Now what government needs to do is to ensure that the traditional rulers are empowered with the modern security outfit that we have to enforce law and order in our community, the moment we are able to achieve that, again am mindful of those who could abuse it. But when the standards are set, we just enforce the standard, so a traditional ruler in a locality should be able to have security at beck and core to ensure that his people are meant to behave well, to ensure that those who have criminal tendency are isolated from the community; that is where it begins. So I am convinced they can play a role in security.
On the national levels the conversation is raging about the Petroleum Industry Bill; one of the key issues which has generally been rejected across the Niger Delta is the percentage that should go to the host communities who are at the front of oil exploration and impacted by all of its hazards; what do you suggest should be the way forward for the National Assembly, and the President with regards to coming up with something that is acceptable by the people who are directly concerned?
In the first place, it is abnormal, it is unacceptable, in fact, Nigeria is not ready to develop especially under the leadership we have. We are not sincere we should be talking about people having their resources and contributing to the center and not the center having and then thinking about sharing the various components; that’s why we can’t develop equal with the PIB, we can’t develop, we can’t. Each region should be able to exploit her resources and contribute to the maintenance of central services and not the center taking. You see the consequences when the center has emphasized the exploitation, exploration, exportation of oil here the other natural resources in other area are left unexploited or exploited without regulation or control or exploited through the black market. So the resources they would have arisen from there that could develop this country are being watched or are being accumulated by individuals. So if I have my way we do not need the PIB and the law, we don’t need it, we should talk about resource control that’s my position and then.
So, you think true federalism is the way forward?
Yes, true federalism and some people mistake true federalism. It is very clear true federalism means that the component part of the federation should have autonomy; we should have some areas where we should be able to generate reasons and contribute to the general services. That is when Nigeria will develop, in fact there was a time I was so perturbed. I started looking in South Africa for example, do they have revenue allocation, and in US do they have revenue allocation? Ask, you are a journalist, do they have revenue allocation where they say this is the amount of money that will go to each state? However, the individual components generate their resources and then this people are taxed for the generation of revenue for the nation that’s what other advance countries do but here we go into taking the resources of the components of the federating unit and then mismanage them; however now that we are in this circumstances, now that the present leadership will not support resource control and individual units exploiting them and contributing to the nation, then they should be sincere, they should be realistic, you can’t give 3% to the host communities and keep about 30% for what you called exploration, new frontiers, and we know the areas they call new frontiers where they want to explore for oil, we know them and this did not start now even in the days of Rivers Basin, it was so. We have wider delta rivers basin and they replicated it in other region and allocated more fund; during Shagari’s regime for example they allocated more for this other basins more than for the Niger/delta river basin that’s what they are still doing , what they did before is what they are still doing. So they (National Assembly) say they are giving us 3%,they say they gave us 13% and then go through the back door and take the majority of this percentages. They created OMPADEC (Oil Minerals Area Development Commission) then NDDC is it not ironical that in the NDDC board there is a federal government representation that is not from the Niger/delta area, such one is from over there and is even stronger than the MD but can you talk about the commission in the North that we have representative from the south that has been so appointed and is as powerful as the one we have in the NDDC? So they seem to give us something through the front door and go through the back door and take it. I am not even sure that if they give us 5% it will be sufficient to compensate for the damage done to our environment; some of them are claiming to have that the oil, the river, in fact, everything on the land belongs to them. That is the kind of situation we find ourselves. So, I am not sure that the PIB is going to solve the problem of the host communities but be that as it may it would have been more accommodating for them to have given the Niger delta a higher percentage.
Given your explanation of the issue under review, could it be linked to our defective leadership system, which brings us to an issue you advocated sometime recently about electronic voting? Now, we are having the discussion about the rejection, or we’ll say a partial rejection of electronic transmission of results. The advocacy is for electronic voting. Just a minor component of it is being stood against by some National Assembly members. To what extent does that reinforce your position on Nigeria’s readiness to move forward under the current national leadership?
Kristina, I must tell you, that is a fantastic link you’ve done. In fact, Prof. Ahiauzu, my mentor will say “that’s a fantastic signposting you’ve done”. You have aptly situated the problem we have, we have this thing have mentioned now that we are having developmental challenges because of leadership and this brings us to the way we select our leaders; so long as we continue to have leaders emerge through this current process, we will continue to have these problems. In the face of all these realities, everything is E (Electronic) including bank transfers, we have done BVN, everything is E; somebody who is even pressing microphone to speak will still go against technology. It is not the leadership that is responsible for the desires and the aspiration of the nation, we don’t have that kind of leadership, they are not accountable to the nation, that’s why it happens so and they are not accountable because the citizenry are not in the position to put them or remove them from office. Now the moment we get to the point where people can be in office at the dictate of the people, they will be conscious when they are voting, in fact when they say divide here lets vote so that we know the senators who voted for and who voted against. The idea there is to be able to be ashamed of taking a position that is not intended by the desire of the masses, that is the idea but it failed because even if we know that this people have voted against it there are people who will be singing their praises and the next round of election will come, your vote will not matter and that is where the E-voting comes in. I have experienced it in this university and it is working very well. I have taken it to be Ijaw National Congress (INC), it worked perfectly well, where the decision and vote of the people matter, the votes count. Yes we are going to have challenges, but let us have the challenges and take the challenges in our strides, but if we do not and continue to fold our hands and continue with this process, saying after all even with the present process we have challenges people ran away with ballot boxes, they shoot at the scene of voting, they thumb print like it happened in Lagos during the LGA elections, you saw that viral video; so are these not challenges? Yet, they were still on with it looking for a way to make it perfect so if e-voting could give us opportunity to so do why shouldn’t we embrace it and then as the challenges come we take them on. I am talking from experience, when I introduced E-voting in this university there was massive protest, very massive, there are witnesses to this effect, and all the challenges they mentioned we took them into cognizance and those challenges improved the system and made the system to be more robust, to be transparent and to be more resilient. Even this morning, I had cause to respond to someone, Dr. Akie Hart, he made a publication. Dr Akie Hart, National President of Mangrove Forest Conservation Society Of Nigeria and was talking about the lack of technological facilities and I said let us provide the facilities at their basic minimum and then start the e-voting. Some of this people do not vote in the mangrove forest, they come to towns, cities, their village centers to vote. So, why shouldn’t they vote, if that’s the problem, there’s no network then why shouldn’t they come? Then why shouldn’t we provide for dedicated network services in such areas, it is possible, do they make calls? Yes why shouldn’t we now make it in such a way that the moment they will make calls, they should be able to do their voting, so it is possible, so as the challenges come, we think out of the box and we get solution for it. Even the manual voting, we have never gotten up to 50% of the voters voting, I hope you know that? So, what is wrong if we start and we have 20%, 30%, 40% and then we keep increasing? What is wrong? But we need to start somewhere so that those who do not reflect the desires, the expectation of the voters would not have the opportunity to be in office.
It has been very refreshing, but we will conclude with the point you just made that e-voting is possible; now when we look at your CV, it is heavily loaded and will I say by divine coincidence you are also into student affairs in this institution. For the youths that are coming up, looking at the issues of governance, issues of development and all the other associated issues, what is that advice you want to advance to young people? Starting from Rivers State, Nigeria and beyond.
Sometimes, I weep, I’m afraid of our tomorrow, more than I’m afraid of today; do you know with my position as Dean of Student Affairs, and my interactions with students, I say I’m afraid of tomorrow than today, some of this our youths have imbibed the prevalent culture of the things we condemn and you see them do it, and when you try to correct them, it’s difficult to correct them, they even blackmail you, they call you all sorts of names. Currently, I have a petition on my table, very ridiculous, we have over 30 thousand students here but we have 2,794 bed spaces for undergraduates, are you getting the point? So, there’s no way the bed spaces could go round, for that, there is now bed space racketeering. People who don’t need the spaces will go and book in other to resell at prices higher, and of course every year, the thing has been increasing, the same youths we are talking about, and this year, the thing became so much that I started to introduce some stringent measures to checkmate it; so those who are caught, are made to refund the money and the bed spaces taken away from them. Of course they don’t like it, and because they don’t like it, you now hear things like; it is the Dean that is hoarding bed spaces, the Dean is high handed, the Dean is all that, that they should remove him. Well, why won’t they say I’m high handed? When I will not allow you to sell spaces? Why won’t they say I’m high handed when somebody comes for a space and I say look, you’ll get nothing more than a space because I’m afraid that any additional spaces could be sold. Why won’t I be high handed when I say these spaces are meant for year one students, these spaces are meant for medical student, these spaces are meant for the physically challenged and you would not take it except the people that are supposed to take it takes it first, if it’s remaining then we’ll give it to others, then I’m high handed, these are the kind of youths we have. So, how will these youths eventually give the kind of leadership we need in this country, in this state? So I see them and I weep, but for me, everything boils down to leadership. If we have them in leadership, we put them to order, we insist they do the right thing, even at the risk of being called out, of being threatened, because the world is a stage, we will play our part and one day you’ll leave, so while playing your part, endeavor to play your part as best as you could, after you leave it is your works that will speak for you. We are all not going to stay here. So, somebody should come and say whether when you played your part you played it well or not but for God sake, you do your best, so the challenge we have with our youth is their imbibition of the prevalent culture of deception, deceit, greed, get rich quick syndrome, of not working hard, of trying to scam or blackmail people. That’s the kind of youths we have, so you can see that in my days as student Union leader, I was one time, National Union of Rivers State Student (NURS) leader, I was president of Post Graduate Student Association; in our days, we could condemn government in unison, of what we think is wrong, but today, we can’t have a student body do that because as one group is condemning, another group is praising, we used to in unison go out to the streets to make our voices heard, now, as you are getting to the street, there is another set of the same union waiting for you at the other end. Are you not aware of the spitted youth groups we have in Rivers State? I mean, do you understand the picture I’m painting now? That’s the kind of situation we find ourselves.
But there must be a way out, and there might be some of them who are willing, and who are already making progressive change in their little corners.
That’s why I mentioned Leadership until we have a leadership that is sincere, we have a leader that is focused, we have a leadership that works for the interest of the generality of the people, that is the kind of leadership I’m talking about. Such a leader who can make sacrifices for the good of the people, I will give you instances, let’s just say as Dean of Student Affairs, there is no time we are going to have election here that I will not have pressure from within and outside the University, sometimes I could admire even a candidate, he/she is intelligent and smart, humble, I admire and I wished he or she emerged the president but I’ve had instances where that never occurred, and I have had pressure to want to sabotage the system for such candidate to emerge, I abstained, I refused and I was called all sorts of names. A particular instance that I can give because right now they are no longer in office so I can talk about them, the election of the Post Graduate Student Association (PGSA) in this University couldn’t be held for a very long time, as I became Dean, I tried to encourage them to hold that election, they couldn’t hold the election. Some of them said no the best thing to do is to have e-voting, since we have done it with the undergraduate students for about three years and it was successful, let’s get it there (PGSA). So in 2018, we introduced e-voting, I had all sorts of threats, letters, in fact, they were putting posters all over the campus, they were abusing me, that I have already had a candidate that I want to endorse, I want to do that, why? Because one of the presidential aspirant wrote to the Vice Chancellor agreeing that the only way we can have a free, transparent election that will not involve violence is the e-voting and since we have started doing it with the undergraduate students, we should bring it to the Post Graduate level and the VC felt that was reasonable so he approved. For making that recommendation and securing management approval, they considered that young man as Management candidate, meanwhile he was not a candidate for Management, Management had no candidate, he just brought a suggestion that we felt that could virtually bring about the PGSA and we embraced especially since it was in tandem with what we were doing with the undergraduate students. So I got blackmailed, the VC got blackmailed that we already had a candidate, this young man I’m talking to you about is very competent, I have no doubt in his capacity, but he didn’t believe because he had perhaps expected that I would have maybe done something to make him win and I said I wouldn’t sabotage the system, the system which was from beginning designed to be transparent. So if I designed the system to be transparent, then why should I go back and sabotage it and I stood my ground, I had sympathy for him and he lost the election and I told him boy you lost, he couldn’t even get himself together to petition because he knew, but the leadership, the Post Graduate Student Association lost a competent leader, because they came together, teamed up against him, blackmailed him as Management candidate so since he was considered to be Management candidate, he will protect the interest of the university’s Management and therefore will not protect the interest of the students so vote against him, they massively voted.
But that’s democracy…
Good. So, because of that we said, you wanted this other person, have him, I’m giving that as an example, that’s how it should be. Given the sympathy for the young man, one would have maybe attempted to do something to sway the vote in his favour. That’s the point I’m making, we didn’t do it and we’ve had several cases like that in this University but people will still not believe, they still believe whoever emerged, is influenced in some way. My experience in this thing (youth engagement) is very instructive.
In leading, you must always be aware that you’re going to be confronted with conflicting values, don’t forget it, so anytime you’re making a decision or making a choice between two values; choose that value that you can sleep well. Choose that value you can defend, choose that value that can make you stand tall. Both will be values, two things valuable but go for that one that can make you stand tall, do you understand the point I’m making?
And the moment our leaders think through things that way……..
…So I’ll sit and say, what is the motivation for this objective? Is it for the good of majority or I’m achieving this objective for myself? Both are values; are you getting the point, but which one is more valuable? And that’s why sometimes, like now I’ve got the VC do an approval for me and it will take time for me to get the approval but already I’ve started implementing, even using my resources to implement because I prefer to achieve results than to be contented with what I’m going to have and so sometimes you may even find yourself in a position using your personal resources for public service which is more valuable. The satisfaction you get that you’ve created value for the public is more satisfying, it’s more encouraging than the one you get satisfying yourself, (hisses) yeah..eh, okay I was not able to achieve it, but I was able to achieve something for myself. So we need to inculcate in our youth the beauty of sacrifice, the beauty of giving value, the beauty of creating worth and anything they do should be worthwhile and when we get to that point, then my tears, my secret tears will one day be dried but right now I cry, I cry for our youths.
Good to hear from a stake holder of this magnitude. A voice to recon with . An authority in his field. He who have ears ,let him listen .