Professor Victor Izegbu is of the Urological Surgery at the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirate. In this interview with Tokunbo Adedoja and Sunday Aghaeze, he spoke on the state of the nation. Excerpts:

As a Nigerian in the Diaspora, each time you look at the country’s potential and the current state of affairs, how do you feel?
That is a very good question. I feel extremely sad about the current situation in the country. My view is that the main problem we have is leadership problem. We lack leadership at all levels of the society. Leadership is not just necessarily the President, but people that head various units are leaders in their own rights. As far as I am concerned, they are not functioning optimally to provide effective leadership for the country.

I think I stand in a good position because of my international exposure to be able to bring the experience that I have acquired abroad to improve this country by providing visionary leadership, effective leadership. This is what we need and I am hoping that I will be able to translate that at a specific level where I think I will be most effective.

If the problem is leadership, do you think it has anything to do with the process of the emergence of leaders in this country?
Well, it could be, partly. Because if you look at this country historically, we go back to the pre-independence period when we had the British people ruling us, things worked properly, granted that we were a small nation in terms of population, probably just under 50 million, roughly, in the pre-independence period. We have gradually gone down the hills since independence. We had a crisis that led to the various coups. The military leadership failed us without any doubts and I think we are now at a point where we need to turn things round with a new generation of leaders.

Even some of the civilians have also failed us. I will have to say, post the military era. I am hoping that this century, we will get a new category of leaders that are visionary. There are countries in other parts of the world, far east in particular, Asia and the Middle-east that are transforming their nations, transforming the various cities in those countries to be the envy of the rest of the world. That is where we need to be. Historically, we've just gone downhill since the British left. I think it is time for us to turn things round.

There are instances where Nigerians abroad returned home and were entrusted with leadership but ended up a disappointment. What do you say to that?
I don't think you can judge everybody in the Diaspora by one or two bad eggs, if you want me to describe them like that. There are people who have come from the Diaspora like me who haven't been given the opportunity to prove that we can provide that kind of leadership. More importantly, I left this country in my late twenties, so I lived in Nigeria throughout the early military period. Therefore, I knew a lot about what was happening in Nigeria by the time I left and coming back thirty odd years down the line, I am in a position to identify the differences.

Apart from leadership, do you share the views that Nigeria may be suffering from the curse of oil?
I think our problem is multi-factoral. I don't think we can blame oil alone for that. I have this feeling that even if oil was not discovered in this country and we just have agriculture and industry, we will still have the same problem, we will mess it up. And that is where the common factor is: who will lead us to achieve our goals? A good example is Sheikh Mouhamed Bin Bashir Al-Maktoum in Dubai. If you have been to Dubai, you can see the fantastic changes that have taken place. This is a country that does not have oil.

The neighbouring country has oil, Abu Dhabi, has oil and it is nowhere has nice as Dubai, nowhere as structured as Dubai but they produce more oil than Nigeria. That is a good example. So, we can't blame oil alone. Though, it is a contributory factor, no doubt. I just have a feeling that if we are led properly, we will be in a better state than we are now.

At what point do you think went wrong?
That is another good question. I think probably pre-independence, not post-independence. The way the political parties were set up by the British was a major contributory factor to how our problems started. I think the electoral system that led to the emergence of the then Prime Minister Abubakar, and President Nnamdi Azikiwe was flawed. I think we can start off from that premise that this was actually where our problem started.

When the British were around, everything was under wrap, but as soon as the British left, they came to the fore. That led to the various constitutional crises that we had and that eventually led to the January coup of 1966. So, we have to say that the problem precedes independence actually, but it then became much more open when the British left.

Would you therefore say the military played a role?
Sorry to say, I think they played a major role in terms of our current problems. The lack of a stable political climate made foreign direct investment into Nigeria a huge problem. We had one leader after another, one coup after another. The military era was a huge failure for this country and its set us back for decades. I think most people will agree with that.

There is nowhere in the world where you will have a military government that will be successful. It is usually a transition phase. The people in Southern America tried it and they saw that it was supposed to be a transition thing. Argentina, Chile- it never made any difference. It set them back. Lacking the political system was one of the problems that they had. The military system was not ideal for development. From my point of view, it set us back big time.

What do you think Nigerians in the Diaspora can do to overcome the challenge of re-integration into the system whenever they are home?
I have thought about that. I think forming a united people from the Diaspora rather than individuals from the Diaspora working on their own is probably one way forward. If we do come back, we will still all be within a group while we are here rather than us acting individually. While we were abroad, we worked in a group. We have national associations abroad, when we come back there should be a sub-group of Nigerians who had been abroad but are back in Nigeria trying to deal with the problem we encounter when we get back.

How to integrate and assimilate the new culture that we are trying to catch up with; there is that obvious problem of people who have been here trying to say that you can't just come back and then tell us what to do because you have been away while we have been here struggling to do that. Well, they may even have a point, but at the end of the day, what is your goal? What do you want to achieve. If we all have the same goal, we should be able to work together. So, it is a question of those of us in the Diaspora trying to work with those who have been here to achieve the same goal.

Would you advocate electoral reform in terms of campaign funding and the process of electing party candidates?
I do. I strongly advocate that. I think there are plans for a constitutional review. The present constitution was written for us by the military as it were. I think it is time for us to rewrite the constitution. The problem I have with that is that those who will be involved in writing the constitution are those who are already entrenched in the system. And you know what human beings are? They will write the constitution in their favour. So, there has to be a mechanism where we’ll involve people from outside. We can't afford to leave it to the current legislature as its stands today.

There has to be a form of national consensus on how we write a new constitution. I think from this point of view, I will have to follow one of the suggestions made by Dr. Tunji Braithwaite that there has to be a national consensus that will take Nigeria in a new direction post the military era. That new direction will be such that we will have a new set of goals for ourselves. And I think for a new century as well, we should have a totally new idea of how we’ll develop our country. We need to start all over again. That will be my suggestion on that.

If you have the privilege to serve, what will be your focus and priorities?
Coming from Delta State, the way things are in 2013 and possibly to the next election, security is a major issue. I think that is something I will make a priority on my list because without security, you can't have a stable environment for people to thrive, for economic development, for people to move around. Safety of lives and property is extremely important. One will have to have a special agreement with the Federal Government on how we will keep Delta State secured. People need to be able to move around freely. We need to be able to control kidnapping. Whatever it takes to do that, we will have to do that. And that will require a visionary leader to do.

Security is one thing, obviously infrastructure is another thing. And by infrastructure, I mean roads bridges, water, electricity and so on. Probably, this is where the new constitution will come in. States will have to have significant power to control their own security, control their own infrastructure development and have an ombudsman, as it were that can monitor the use of funds to achieve these goals. It is one thing to want to do that, but if you are given and abuse the funds in the name of security by just giving it to ordinary people, that doesn't make sense.

2015 is just around the corner; are you aspiring for anything?
If they want me to run, that is different from me wanting to run. I think that I can offer the people of Delta State the change that they need; the change that they can trust. I will like to run because I see myself as somebody that can bring in the change the state itself needs and deserves. Come 2015, I will like to throw my hat into the ring and say I will want to be part of the process of running for the leadership of the state. I am going to run for the people of Delta State rather than for myself and I hope I will be different from my peers who also want to run because I am quite passionate about that. I believe in the legacy for my people and not for myself. It is going to be the paramount reason for running.