New Telegraph

Is the zeal to serve still the same after the election that the PDP lost?

I want to start by saying that I had a contract with Abia people to serve them for initial four years, which was renewed for another four years. This contract will terminate effectively on the 29th of May and sincerely speaking, I owe it to Ndi-Abia to continue to serve them. If you recall, immediately after I was sworn in on the 29th of May, 2015, I resumed on Aba roads. And I recall, most of those roads were Ukaegbu Road and Umuola Road.

They were the first point of call for me because they represented entry and exit points from that part of Aba. So, I will be working. I am still active. Asphalt work is still ongoing at Faulks Road as I speak. The new government house has over 75 workers presently as I speak. The Multi Specialist Hospital in Aba has over 50 workers as I speak. Just across the fence here, within this premises, you see the container bearing the full complement of the equipment for the new garment factory. So, I intend to the glory of God to also commission projects from the first week of May to the 14th of May. We will be doing massive commissioning in Aba.

We’ve not commissioned the Mgbarakuma road in Umuahia South; we’ll also commission the new garment factory. We will also commission the new government house and com- mission the Multi Specialist Hospital. And then officially welcome the Abia State College of Health and Management Sciences to their permanent site. We’ll also commission the ultramodern hospital/diagnostic lab at Isuikwuato. These are massive projects that we take every inch of my time. We quickly put behind those events of the 2023 elections. These are mere rituals. Some of us are not elected politicians. We would like to be addressed as trans-generational leaders. We will speak to issues beyond the elections. Elections will come and go and the outcome has nothing to do with my zeal and contract with Abia people.

What’s your view about the outcome of the Abia South Senatorial Election?

I have my reservations regarding the events of that election but I’m not a bitter man and I don’t want to give relevance to rubbish. That’s why, within 24 hours, I made it clear that I’m not interested in going to court. I’ve also made it clear that assuming that seat was vacant now, I’ve moved on. I’m no longer interested in going to the Senate. What I came to do was to add value because we saw gaps. You can’t identify one single Federal Government project attracted by the incumbent senator for the past 16 years and we felt that we were unplugged from the National Grid as it were.

Having been governor for 8 years, I felt that I was coming from a vintage position with my knowledge of what deficiencies were. Offered myself, but maybe my service is required somewhere else. Whatever the outcome is, the people will get. So, giving relevance to that charade is not what I’ll like to do but there are questions begging for answers. When and where did our people understand the difference between the Obi wave as to decipher when to do APGA, and decipher when again to do labour? Where again did it happen in all the Senatorial Zones?

With the emergence of Tinubu, do you think the G-5 has succeeded in their quest to get Southern president?

Certainly yes. You see, if you think of a position as a leader, you must be colour and tribe blind. What G-5 campaigned for was inclusivity. We were sensitive to the social strata of Nigeria where every group, both youths and women will be included. It is a call for the Leadership to begin to listen to people. Because, if you become a president or governor, you’re equally the same for everybody including mad people and people with special needs without sentiments. We were challenging our party to keep to their rules as contained in the Constitution of the party, which recognizes zoning.

When that wasn’t to happen, we raised the issue that there’s a voice resonating in the South represented by Peter Obi as he is pre- senting a very strong alternative and will take away a very huge chunk of PDP votes in this area. We asked if the risk was necessary. We equally asked for the position of the National Chairman but all that was not heeded to. We have a president-elect now, though not from our party but from the Southern part of Nigeria. So, we have moved forward to say that if the South does their tune, it’ll be the turn of the North.

What comes to me as an individual is completely immaterial. We would have loved our party to win but Nigerians have spoken. I wish that the president-elect whenever he takes office from May 29th will be a little more sensitive to the yearnings and aspirations of the peoples of Nigeria, irrespective of tribes, age and religion because the youth are also speaking and their yearnings and their voices are becoming louder by the day.

Was it true that officials of the Abia govt tried to bribe the Returning Officer (Prof Nnenna Otti)?

I’ve challenged her to name those who tried to bribe her. I never wanted to talk about the events of that election until the Professor started dancing publicly, celebrating and bringing traditional dances into the University environment and I said that this was quite curious. Then, she started saying that some people tried to compromise her.

And I said that she was celebrating what she was incapable of doing. Who’ll go to talk to the Returning Officer whose mere responsibility is just to announce the results that had already been declared at the unit, ward and local government area level? How will compromising the Returning Officer change the already existing figures available? Unless those people don’t understand the electoral law and the process of election. Even as I also know that INEC, in the last election compromised these elections by changing the processes. Because INEC failed to supply logistics for the election to start when it started in other places, that means they’ve compromised election in that area because that area may be your stronghold.

Again, if INEC refuses to declare results at the unit, refuses to declare it at various wards and decides to declare it at Umuahia, they’ve also created an opportunity for them to rig because the agents at the units will not be there to testify if that result was actually what happened in their areas. So, these are the things that happened during the election in Abia. The rest were gathered in one place, where INEC took charge and decided to deal with results the way they wanted. Her celebrations and vocalization became clear to everybody that she had a mindset. An umpire has to be dispassionate. Have you seen a football referee celebrating a goal? Have you seen it anywhere? His duty is to say that a goal has been scored. If he starts celebrating, then he’s the 12th player.

With few days to go, what would you say are your high and low points?

Let me start by saying that my high point was that I was giving the opportunity to change a few things. I advertised my direction from the beginning. I made clear that I’ll create a better life for my people by leveraging five pillars. One of these pillars was SME development. I inherited shoemakers, who were using their hands to cut leather. They were unable to determine how many days it’ll take to produce one thousand pairs of shoes. Everything was done by manual Labour. Today, I was able to take 30 young people to China for capacity building and teach them how to operate automated machines.

Immediately after they completed their training, I brought them home and opened the Enyimba Automated Shoe Company (ENASCO). We’re also following up with New Garment Factory, which is a 560-piece machine equipment. On the first shift, it’ll employ 560 people and if we run two shifts, it’ll employ 1200 people. That means this administration has built two industries for job creation and capacity building for our people in the shoe and garment industries, where we’re better than others. We would have loved to do more but with two that we’ve done, it shows we’ve started somewhere.

We’re also happy to say that we established an SME Microfinance Bank in Abia. This SME Microfinance Bank is to serve the financial needs of petty traders and artisans. It will also give them advice on bookkeeping and cluster them in cooperative societies to enable them to access CBN financial facilities. We’ve been around the world with Aba artisans and we believe that they can do better than some larger companies outside the continent. To- day, they are now proudly branding their products made in Aba.

We’ve won many awards in terms of SME development to the point that we’re recognized by Mr President as the SME capital of Nigeria. In terms of education, this government has built over 700 classroom blocks. We have four model schools at Obingwa, Umuahia, Osisioma and one at Ohafia. We equally have a teacher education retraining programme that brings teachers from advanced parts of the world to retrain our teachers. Perhaps, Abia is one of the few states that have migrated to digital learning, especially in our model schools.

The outcome of all of these is that Abia State became number-1 in West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for four years back to back and we removed Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu from number 97 to number 26th and the second best state-owned school in Nigeria. The products of our university are world-beaters across Nigeria. By all standards, we’ve improved the standard of education in Nigeria and the standard of learning has drastically improved as well as the morale of the teachers.

I remember there was a time we used to give vehicles to each of the three best teachers from the three Senatorial Zones on Teacher’s Day. It was to serve as an incentive to them. In terms of health, we’ve reduced the maternal and infant mortality rate by 71 per cent and we were also able to improve attendance at our primary healthcare centre by 31 per cent. We also run a geriatric outreach for old people 70 and above where we go to their various communities to meet them and administer healthcare to them. All of these are robustly supported by Abia Tele Heal Initiative. We have 15 doctors in the government house today that are in touch online in real-time. We have over 700 Primary Health Care centres that are functional in Abia State.

These primary health care centres are also in touch with the patients in various primary health care centres. Our primary health care centres have moved up in terms of service. They are not just vaccination centres, but centres where patients can interface with attendants in the Primary Health Care centres, even with the doctors through WhatsApp and other internet facilities. I’m also proud to say that for the current 8 years as governor, we’ve not recorded one case of polio in Abia State.

We handled even Covid-19, so well that the World Health Organization(WHO) reported that one of the centres from where they mine the data to calibrate Nigeria’s success or otherwise in response to Covid-19 was Abia State. We’re where we’ve gained international recognition in terms of the things we do in Abia. I’m proud to say that before I leave office, I’ll be bequeath- ing an ultra-modern diagnostic lab at Isuikwuato and a Multi Specialist Hospital within the premises of the Aba General Hospital. That Hospital will serve the needs of our people and reverse medical tourism in Abia and in this Geopolitical Zone.

Abia State under my watch has become the safest state in the Eastern part of the country. Also through our intervention in commerce and SME development, we’ve been able to manage and reduce poverty. Abia State is the third best in the multidimensional- poverty index, which was recently published. Abia State was one of the top six states that got to the higher ranking of states in Nigeria in terms of ease of doing business in 2017. So, there are so many things we’ve managed to do. I don’t want to forget my intervention in agriculture.

We planted four million species of the tenera seedling of oil palm and we’ve gone ahead to build six cottage industries in six local governments. We’ve completed 235 roads in Abia. We still have more we think we can hand over. To do 235 roads and complete them with four Bridges and the first Abia Flyover, two industries and more is a whole lot. I keep discovering what we’ve done every day. The roads we built in Aba are more economic roads. It got to a point where people were lambasting me because I have not done the road leading to my village but to the glory of God, I’ve finally done the road to my village. I only placed things in terms of priority.

Are there things you could have done better?

Yes. I think what I didn’t do properly was to believe that I could pass by being a silent achiever. I allowed my desire to work and let my work speak for me, the idea that people seized the narratives and started saying all kinds of things. Even people who don’t know anything about governance and the challenges, said all kinds of things. I would have perhaps deployed 70 per cent of the resources to media and propaganda and then do 30 percent.

I don’t know that that’s the right thing to do. If I’m advising my son, I’ll still tell my son to do the right thing. But I feel bad that people painted me in borrowed robes and said all kinds of things and denied my hard work. You delivered a Flyover and they’ll say it’s not you that delivered it. It’s very frustrating.

What legacy project of yours would you want the incoming governor to take more seriously and continue?

In 2015, when I became governor, I didn’t see a master plan for Aba, Umuahia and Ohafia. I didn’t also see a long-term development plan and I didn’t see any industrial policy but these three key documents are now available for my successor. If he reads and studies the Abia long-term development plan, I’m sure that he’ll be able to catch our vision of where we’re going. He’s free to make amendments, accelerate, decelerate, change whatever, but at least, there’s a document now.

There’s also an industrial policy which was drafted by UNIDO and I don’t think that one needs no addition because UNIDO people are experts. The Aba, Umuahia and Ohafia Master plan is being handled by UN-Habitat and once again, I think he needs to leverage these documents to grow Abia. He has all tools he needs to do well. I’m going to also bequeat $50 million which we’ve attracted already for him to do 500 kilometres of rural roads.

Is the Local Government Area election still going to hold and is the timing right?

We have a contract with Abia people and there’s no bad time to do what’s right. There’s no difference between the end of an administration and the beginning of the administration. There can only be one Governor at a time. I promised Ndi-Abia that I’m going to conduct three local government elections. I’ve done two and it’s still within my powers to decide in collaboration with major stakeholders in this administration to do so.

Part of the reasons we want to do it is that when you do local government elections, you deepen democracy and allow the youths to participate, groom them as leaders. If they run an election at the local government level, the destiny of the various communities are in their hands. It also helps in security because every local government Chairman becomes Chief security of the area. So, whether I’ll do it or when I’ll do it is still my decision to make and I’ll make that decision.

Is your administration up to date with salaries?

Yes. And this question gives me the opportunity to correct the wrong impression. The truth is that 29,000 of the 31,000 workers we have are up to date in terms of salaries. So, we have a problem with about 2,000 workers. These 2,000 workers are drawn from parastatals and revenue-yielding agencies of government. I know of a particular government agency that will tell you that they’re being owed for 12 months but out of those 12 months, they’ve not come to work for 8 months.

My Bible says that a worker deserves his wage. Now, if you don’t go to work, have you worked? Steps are being taken to ensure that wage bill management comes to the fire. I don’t think that 29,000 over 31,000 times 100 is a bad mark. Having said that, the requirement that opens my pocket and makes me struggle to pay is to justify the work. I’m following my people where they go.

Last word for Abians?

I thank them for their cooperation, their massive love and support. I’ve been your governor for eight years and you didn’t force me to use a bulletproof car because you kept this place safe for me. I remain eternally grateful to God for the peace and stability we enjoyed that has made us achieve so many things. We must keep the faith and realize that we haven’t any other state, except Abia.

Those who make it their duty to run- down Abia, what they’re doing is the most unpatriotic exhibition of lack of faith. I want to urge Abia people to run away from such a people. Let us recognize the hard work of our heroes past, even as we build on them for a better Abia tomorrow. I urge everyone to cooperate with the new administration as it comes. Look at the body language of what somebody

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