by Wilfred Okiche

Journalist, television host and media entrepreneur sits down with YNaija for a thoughtful, irreverent chat on a broad range of issues. Currently dividing her time between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, Iyanda who hosted a valedictory session for Lagos state governor, Babatunde Fashola on her annual new year’s day Change-A-Life show remains passionate about the land of her birth and remains committed to effect changes through her work.

We bring you excerpts from the interview

We get glimpses of you from social events, public appearances from time to time. Where are you when you aren’t in Lagos and what are you keeping busy with?

I started a new company in the United Kingdom because there were certain types of creative work I wanted to do that I could not do with a Nigerian company so I teamed up with 2 partners in the UK. The company is focused on the production back end and for the past 2 years we have been acquiring rights to certain creative content out of Africa. I am also working with investors out of China to do certain back end industry things. If you hear me being cryptic, it is because I have learnt not to say everything till the plans are done but trust that there is a lot going on as regards to television. Aside from that I have also been talking, giving lectures in different universities. I started something called How to fix Nigeria and it is a series of discussion that seeks to provide answers.

What has the experience of being away from Nigeria done for you as a person and as a professional?

Being away from Nigeria makes me love Nigeria the more and I can explain that to you. It is like being in a marriage. If you are at each other’s throat every day, you will kill each other. Because I don’t have to engage with Nigeria’s drama on a daily basis, I am able to stand back and see things with perspective. My How to fix Nigeria series started as a documentary and I did a lot of research about the history, economics, politics of Nigeria and this made me understand why Nigeria is the way it is. Once you understand this why without being victims of it every day, then you have empathy. Maybe not empathy but compassion, because while empathy may mean you just want to shout yepaa and move on, compassion means you want to look at what might work and how it might work. So I do not get carried away easily with the drama; that would be a waste of energy and a cop out. Also I am able to engage other countries particularly the UK closer. I see her scars better so I don’t romanticize her at all. Or Nigeria for that matter. So it is a really interesting space to be and I count myself lucky to be able to appreciate both worlds. My deepest passion is seeing Nigeria become all that she can be.

Is there that risk of being distant from both countries such that you are away from Nigeria too much to deeply connect, and not in the UK enough to really feel a part of them?

I have a friend in the BBC who said that they like being a serial expatriate, there are advantages and disadvantages to it. In the world we live in now, it is pretty difficult to be disconnected. Between Twitter and other social media, I feel like I have my finger on the pulse. I have friends in Ghana, an office in Lagos, Change-A-Life in Nigeria, many Nigerian friends in the UK. For the UK balance, I constantly engage with academia, media, I am a young global leader of the World Economic Forum and we are constantly meeting around the world. There is a big body of us in London; in government and private sectors so it is hard not to engage. And it is not just me, global nomads are all over the world operating at different levels. There is a possibility of losing touch but I am home often enough. I spend roughly half the year in Nigeria.

What would you say to those who accuse you of running away from Nigeria, perhaps when it needed you the most?

I understand why they would say so. It took me leaving the screen to understand the impact I seem to have had. I think people look at me and think that if I am still here, that means I still believe in Nigeria, but when I leave, it means maybe, things aren’t going to work anymore. I understand that fear and I honour it but I did not run away from Nigeria. In fact we are in talks at present to do something else in Nigeria that will be quite visible. I think it is a misunderstanding and I would plead for more understanding. It is like being a parent. There are some parents who almost hate their child because of the pressure of parenting without support, while those who are wise enough to involve family are not swamped in that one role such that they become resentful of their parental responsibilities. I am not resentful of my role in Nigeria because I haven’t refused support.

You have done a couple of projects after New Dawn on 10 but it always comes back to New Dawn. So let me ask you this, do you look at current happenings in the political space and wish that you were still right in the thick of the action?

I think that people romanticize Funmi Iyanda and hence, give me more credit than I deserve. To accept that is to be arrogant and to lack self-awareness. On the other hand, I can understand that there is a space that I occupied that is not being occupied. I myself sometimes feel responsible that maybe we should be doing things a certain way. I have said it publicly that any station in Nigeria that wants me to host that sort of show to cover the election period, I would do it for free because I consider it necessary. But there is only so much I can push in that regard and there are some things I cannot do on my own. I only started doing the How to fix Nigeria series with the Royal African Society in London because they were the only ones that would take it on. I would love for a Nigerian institution to take on such a non-partisan discussion because we need the neutral voices in the middle to check ourselves. I think that New Dawn was done the way it was and it needed to have been replaced by something else. That thing will come in its own time.

Do you think that you should be the one to replace New Dawn?

One tree does not make a forest. There are more Funmi Iyandas out there. I think that the challenge with Nigeria is that we have a structure all round that throws up our most banal, most ordinary, most unimaginative voices and faces. That said, there are still people who are thriving. I saw Agatha doing the show and I have admiration for that. Kadaria does hers, Angela does hers. I saw Nike Oshinowo recently and I thoroughly enjoyed her show, I thought she was charming. Moments with Mo does a good job, and the fact that she has started a television station is impressive and wonderful. I will come back to television we just have to find an arrangement I am comfortable with so that I do not lose that voice because what is the point of having a trusted voice if you do not use it.

I know it’s a big question but what are the answers you have gotten from your How to fix Nigeria series. How do we fix Nigeria?

The first thing I have learnt from the series is that instead of asking “why is Nigeria like this?” we should be asking how in the world Nigeria has remained, given everything that has happened. It is fascinating once you change that question. Nigerians are not special and I say to people in the UK that if their institutions and structures broke down in the ways in which ours have, then they would learn how human they are because it is those institutions that keep us human. The constitution does not work, the basis of our arrangement as a nation doesn’t work. There are many things that have become taboo for us to discuss because we are too afraid to face them. We need to talk about devolution of power, resource control, who does what, the powers of the legislature. There is a lot of talk about who is going to be president. That is important, but more important should be; how do we reduce the powers that the president has because he has too much of it. And it is usually a “He” by the way. Who and who are going into the legislature? If you have a president that is great for example, he would need the help of the legislature on his side. An over paid, over bloated legislature just won’t do that and as a result, depending on the kind of person the president is, he becomes autocratic or useless.

The institutions are important. How can we have 10 million children out of school? What sort of education should we be having, how do we review the curriculum, how did we have the military that we have. Those are the things we need to structure. I asked of someone who wants to be president; a seemingly simple question, who is your favourite Nollywood actress. What I am really asking is if he knows that this is a potential money spinning industry. Something that creates millions of jobs, is great PR for your country and can transform a whole sector. What is the basis of our economic policies? Are we a socialist or capitalist country? There is a global conversation about capitalism and we are not even part of it, we aren’t considering who we should be. We seem to be running around headless. So a new generation of people who want to change Nigeria should be ready to consider these things. What is the place of women? Those are the kind of questions we need to be asking of the men who want to be president.

Speaking of resources, it is shocking that all these years of oil boom we enjoyed, and we did not do much with it.

I would tell you this personal story. My friend and partner in London, we sat down and looked at the figures for the rebased GDP and based on our deep understanding of the entertainment industry, we came to the conclusion that these numbers aren’t true. I wrote to an economist in the UK Guardian and I showed him the holes, pointing out that this is what I do and I know the figures and he said to me well, the World Bank says so. I asked, is the World Bank Jesus Christ? Or Orunmila? These people have been known to be fallible over and over again and I have given you the evidence. I don’t want to be talking bad of my country to some Oyibo because really when it comes down to it, they don’t get it. I think it is one of our failings that we are more concerned about what other people think about us as against what we think we should be. We should define what we want to be and take ourselves seriously. These are just my thoughts.

Sometimes I think because of all these complexities, the Nigerian president is set up to fail.

Absolutely. Absolute power in that way isn’t healthy for everybody. Even in a relationship if you have a girlfriend who lets you beat her up, she is a fool quite alright, but more than anything else, if you pull the lens out and start looking at yourself from a distance, you yourself have been made less human by the weakness of that partner you have. If the president has been given all this power and they haven’t done the internal work to not be swamped by that much absolute power, it is unhealthy for all parties. We need to restructure it such that the people around him can wark without fear that their livelihood depends on his goodwill. Ditto the legislature and judiciary. Sometimes we get lucky and along comes someone who manages to perform by plucking all the low hanging fruits, but one day these fruits will finish and we shall need to reach higher. But these people are rare and most of the time, we get the average people who tend to misbehave once they come into such excess.

How do you propose we restructure this entity called Nigeria; a referendum, the legislature, another national conference, a revolution?

As a short term measure, we need to have the right legislature which is why going forwards, people need to make sure only the right people are elected. The first law that was passed in 2014 was the anti-gay marriage law, what is that? How does that help anybody? Were we to get lucky and get fairly good legislature and a fairly good presidency that understands that part of their job is to devolve power. And this will be difficult because why would you want to take power from yourself? Unless you understand that it isn’t actually power but a prison. If that were to happen, we would be getting lucky. If it does not, it would take a traumatic event to achieve that. And we pray it does not come to that.

If you were to call the presidential elections today, which way would the votes swing?

I may be a witch but I am not a soothsayer. I don’t want to call it based on statistics and what we know, that would be scary. I prefer to be hopeful. I like that you can see an energy of people trying to get on the side of something more progressive, and it is not even about the individuals, they just want what works. And a friend of mine says that when Nigerians focus at getting something done, they get it done. Maybe 2015 will be the beginning of something. Because oil prices aren’t rising anytime soon, the Naira isn’t rising anytime soon. These would all play up and people will become less indulgent and so people who would normally be ambivalent would participate actively.