• Advises Gov Otti to do more to grow Abia
From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Elder statesman, Chief Sylvanus Nwaji, has said that the current pressure on state and Federal governments to provide development at the grassroots level, would be curbed when Local Governnent Councils get freed from being teleguided by their governors.
Nwaji, a two time council chairman and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State, posited that while Governor Alex Otti has done well in his first year in office, he needs to do more for the state to grow.
Celebrations have been rife in parts of the country, commending President Bola Tinubu and state governors for their developmental strides in their first year in office. Here in Abia, the Alex Otti administration is being hailed by all and sundry for excelling in infrastructural repositioning. Though you are not a member of his party, Labour Party (LP), would you say he has done well?
Talking about the governor, Dr Alex Otti, you know I don’t belong to his party, but I am a stakeholder and elder statesman. So, I can say in all fairness, that he has tried to lift the state and is still trying. He’s my friend. I was his campaign manager in Ukwa West Council Area, in 2015. I know that he has problems in many areas and I chose to distance myself from him because he doesn’t take advice. He believes in gossips. To me, I believe that no man can do it alone and succeed in government. One needs to encourage those working with him even when they do wrong, for them to get things right.
Won’t you allude his attitude to having less knowledge of our current system of politics that gives room to people to gossip, to win favour from their principals?
I wouldn’t call it that. The current governor, Dr Otti, has been a politician and a chief executive officer of a bank. Governance is governance and there’s politics in occupying such exalted positions of authority. So, it is not new. People make mistakes in serving the masses and the leader, has a duty to correct them, even through reprimand, rather than going public to derogate such individuals. I don’t support corruption because I am not corrupt, but what I’m saying is that a leader ought to accommodate his lieutenants. However, here in the state, what we hear daily are allegations of office holders stealing this or that money and it is not going down well with the administration. When an official makes a mistake financially or otherwise, he or she needs to be cautioned, reprimanded and not exposed to high heavens through media trial. We are all human beings and no one of us is above mistakes. Like I said earlier, Otti, is trying to move the state forward and I pray that he succeeds. My prayer, is that everybody in governance should succeed. Let our governor avoid praise singers. His abolishing indigene and non-indigene dichotomy in Abia, to me, is to sustain support for a second term in office, winning everybody to support his administration. But I tell you that it is not done anywhere. If they (non-indigenes) want to vote for one during elections, they’ll do so out of personal will not from what you do for them. One cannot wake up one morning to simply say that he has abolished it. If one may ask, will a non-indigene come over to take my father’s compound? It is not possible. Most praise singers of our time are drawn from neighbouring sister states. They mislead the governor, clapping and telling him he is the best thing in town, but when election comes, those that vote turn out to be the indigenes. Non-indigenes either return to their places of origin, or sit at home in their houses while the real stakeholders struggle it out at the polling centres. It is, therefore, out of place for now, for the governor to say that he has abolished indigenes and non-indigenes syndrome.
The last time we spoke, you debunked the insinuations that past governors that ruled Abia, didn’t perform. In fact, you said each of them had contributed positively, towards it’s development. Looking at the accolades the present governor is getting, are you continuing in that stance, if yes, why?
Yes, like I said no past governor in Abia failed to perform. Everyone of them, especially in the civilian dispensation, has done well to the best of his capabilities, according to his own capacity. If one wants to showcase himself, he needs to follow laid down tracks, to shine in the glory of God. One doesn’t work to be hailed by humans. I could say that was why God allowed Dr Otti, to come this time. When one is in authority, he or she is expected to change his society, to improve his people’s wellbeing. Otti, is trying in this direction, but needs to do more till the end of his leadership, though I’ll have to advise him to stop overblowing issues of alleged corruption identified with his predecessors in office. There are ways of following such anomalies in government. We have anti-graft agencies in our country that ought to handle matters in that direction. We shouldn’t engage in media trials of persons alleged to have embezzled governnent funds and plundered the state. Our response should be to hand over whatever information at our disposal on such matters, to the appropriate authorities to investigate and prosecute the culprits, if found to be liable. Abia belongs to all of us and no one person or group should be allowed to plunder it and go scot free, but the mode of shouting it in the media and casting blames, has not been properly handled. One should not engage in blackmail to outshine his opponents. That’s why I said that all our governors, past and present, have worked, performed according to their abilities. The governor and his aids are not law enforcers and so, cannot convict any wrongdoer. For instance, if former governor, Okezie Ikpeazu’s administration, had diverted funds meant for Abia airport project, what the current man in power ought to do, is to prepare his findings and hand them over to either the EFCC or any other anti-graft agencies of government while finding ways to build the airport to show that he has done what the past regime was unable to do. The governor is the father of all Abians and should at this time, know that he is no longer a party man. He ought to see his predecessors in office as his subjects and not antagonists from opposition parties.
You are critical of your people, Asa communities in Ukwa West Council Area, not benefitting from government’s development programmes despite being an oil-producing area. Has that been taken care of now that some of your sons have been appointed into certain sensitive positions by the governor? Also, at what level is work progressing at the Owaza industrial area project being sponsored by the state government?
Like I said in a previous interview, the take over of our land by the government is to us, land-grabbing. Since it got flagged off with fanfare, nothing has been done to develop it. I still say that apart from the then administration of Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, (now Senator representing Abia North district), that remembered to assist when we didn’t have good roads to construct the Obehie/Akwette/Azumini road, no other governnent in Abia has done anything for us in areas of development. Chief Orji Kalu appointed our sons into high offices of government, elevating some of them to position of permanent secretaries in the state civil service, made one of them Secretary to the State Government (SSG) with others occupying prominent ministries such as that of agriculture. The Owaza project, to us in Asa, is land grabbing because nothing tangible seems to be going on at the site till this moment.
I am aware that the governor, a few weeks ago, commissioned the first phase of the reconstructed Obehie/Akwette/Azumini road, with a promise to see the commencement of Phase 2, to end at the boundary with Akwa Ibom State. Isn’t that a sort of good things coming into your area?
That is a Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) road project. In fact, all roads in Ukwa West (Asa) ought to be built by the NDDC. Coming to the issue of the state oil producing communities development commission (ASOPADEC), the new head appointed by the governor, has impressed me with his developmental prowess. He has just been a few months in office, he embarked on rebuilding the Asa Civic Centre hall in Obehie, abandoned several decades ago. He is currently giving it a facelift, doing what our past leaders refused to do. That’s why I said we shouldn’t actually be blaming governnent for our woes. Our people have at various occasions, occupied high offices in government, but refused to think home, to bring development to their communities. They forget that they will one day vacate such exalted offices for another to take over. The ASOPADEC chairman has as we speak also completed a rural road project abandoned by his predecessors in office. He did it before engaging in the civic centre rehabilitation. I’m impressed by what he is doing, short while in office. You see, I speak my mind on issues. I don’t go to people’s houses to court friendship so as to be free when criticizing. If the governor appoints me into office, I’ll not shy away from telling him the truth. I’ll look at his face and advise him on what he is doing wrong.
There has been an influx of top politicians from the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) into your party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the state. Do you see this as a welcomed development?
Well, I think it’s their right to change parties, since it is their personal decision. However, that is not the main thing. I believe that some of them over-benefitted from the PDP, and should have remained to rebuild the party. Crossing over to the APC, is not the alternative. They ought to have looked at their mistakes that led to the party’s failure, identifying the grey areas and correct them. The problem with the PDP arose from the fact that the immediate past governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, who was its leader, had a broad mind which made him to make promises he was unable to fulfil. That was a very bad way of governing the state and its people. I want to be quoted as saying this, that that behaviour is a very bad way of life before God. I advise people not to make promises they cannot fulfil. That was Ikpeazu’s undoing and people cashed on his openness to flood his home for one request or the other. He had made his gates open for all, a situation that led to making promises in excess of what he can do to assist his followers. This led him to fail. I give an example of a promise he made to let me have the party’s ticket for Ukwa East/Ukwa West House of Representatives seat. He encouraged me to buy the form, noting that he was the governor and would support me, but later bowed to pressure when the time came for the election. I lost that election after selling my property in Port Harcourt to finance the pursuit. Some bad politicians, would have cashed on the incident to quarrel with him, but I refused to cut our relationship. I see what transpired at the time as the will of God. I’m still looking up to God for the time to move forward.
Are you saying, in other words, that leaving the PDP to join APC at this time was a wrong move by the decampees?
No, that movement may not be the issue for now because they are just the same people, carrying out the same functions, with the same zeal and same duties. Some of them are crossing over for the fact that the APC is in power at the Federal Government level and can appoint them into offices. If we watch critically, the politicians’ problems across the nation is lack of or inability to manage themselves in and out of office. They fail to save in order to remain afloat after service. I think this is the real reason everyone is running to join APC. Another, is the issue of flooding into the ruling party, by the PDP members, is to cover the ills they committed while in office. They believe that by becoming members of the party, anti-graft agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and others like it, will not be able to probe them. They feel that the party’s leadership will intervene on their behalf when occasion arises. To me, if one is holding public office and knows what he or she is doing, he has no need to run from one party to another, unless during elections, for convenience. However, those that have joined us are welcomed into the APC family and I wish them well.
President Tinubu and his Attorney General have sued the 36 state governors before the Supreme Court, asking that states be ordered to stop interfering in local governnent councils management of their allocations, among other issues. What is your take on this, in view of your being a two-time council chairman, in Ukwa West Area of Abia State?
I tell you that, if the president succeeds in this, it will be a milestone in liberating Nigerians from the grip of state governors and their rubber stamp houses of Assembly, which approve the backup laws with which they hold down the people. I was a council chairman elected and also appointed and so, know what goes on in the system. I can tell you that there’s no governor in Nigeria today and in the past that does not tamper with local government funds. They collect the allocations, take the lion’s share and give paltry sums to cover workers salaries, administrative overhead costs and funds for security. Even when we got the excess crude oil allocations, what local governments got were not much. So, I support the move by the president and his minister of justice and pray for them to succeed. If local governments are well positioned, with proper elections held by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to elect candidates selected to run for positions by the people themselves, money accruing to them will get directly to those overseeing their people’s affairs without passing through state organs. Many individuals, that have managed our local governments were not prepared for such responsibility as they operated under the influence of governors or political godfathers that recommended them for appointment. I would suggest the abolition of State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC), since they have not been able to and are incapable of conducting free and fair elections at the local governments level. There’ll be robust competition in the development of local council areas if the president succeeds at the Supreme Court. Quality leadership, leading to massive provision of needed infrastructure will evolve as leaders will become accountable to the masses that elected them.
In view of the onerous task ahead and the lingering hunger in the land, what advice will you give to Nigerians, as a stakeholder in the project of our having a better country?
I want Nigerians to pray for those in authority, whether they are doing well or otherwise. Our prayers can push them into turning around to improve on our wellbeing if they were not doing so. Let our governor, Dr Alex Otti, remain focused and not carried away by praise singers. Let him continue to build good quality roads, other infrastructure, including schools, hospitals that will affect us positively. Let us pray for other leaders. From what I’ve been seeing in the media, Governor Zulum of Borno seems to be doing well in infrastructural development. Others ought to emulate his giant strides. On his part, let Governor Otti embark on massive rural development at the grassroots community levels. He should work at that level to secure a second tenure endorsement from Abians and be mindful of praise singers in the urban areas. Those doing so are doing it for themselves only. Let him not share money rather he should be much aware of hunger ravaging the people and reach out to them, including members of his party that are complaining of neglect. As he builds the state infrastructure, let him build the people’s stomachs also. He has done well, but let him increase the tempo and be open to constructive criticisms.