I Intend To Be Meticulous Like Orji
… Ipkeazu
Dr.Okezie Ikpeazu is
the Abia State governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Having been in business and academia he believes that he can bring his
experience from these fields to bear on governance. In this interview with Uzo Chikere, he throws more light on his mission to The Abia State
Government House. Excerpt
From your
perspective, what do you think can be the way forward for Abia State economy?
Abia State today from our perspective must be viewed from
taking a cue from the larger Nigerian environment both politically and
economically. We know that the trend now is that the oil prices are going down
and the economy of Nigeria as a country is looking at other sources of revenue
generation and more innovative ways of managing the Nigeria economy. Taking it
home to Abia State, we think that our challenge is to keep pace with this turn
of events rather than the other way people are looking at it.
If we are talking about infrastructure in Abia moving
forward, we should be talking about infrastructure designed towards economic
advancement and economic development. So there is a new focus on economy of
Abia and what we have in mind is to pioneer a private second led or driven
economy for the future, where we can lay hands on pillars that God has given to
us naturally. The first plan is our people. Abia is peopled by people with
capacity in various areas. Our human capital is second to none and we are the
best traders and we are very good in commerce. We are also very good with the
things we can do with our hands. So in the years ahead we want to leverage
these advantages that God has given us to make sure that the economy of Abia
rests on a strong pillar of trade and commerce, small and medium scale
enterprises.
And then of course we are there in oil and gas but we want
to let the advantage of oil and gas recede to the background because we are
just marginal producers of oil and they should not be on the front burner of
our economic decisions in the days ahead.
We also have another advantage, if you look at Aba for example;
the city is at the confluence of about seven other cities in the South East and
South South. The city is about 30 minutes’ drive to Ikot Ekpene, Port Harcourt,
Owerri, Umuahia among others. So, the strategic location of this city makes it
what sugar is to ants to attract people there. So we must leverage this
strategic geographical location of Aba to place world class infrastructure
around Aba so that we can return trade and commerce and build industrial
clusters around the German model looking at what they do in Germany. What I
mean by that is the apprenticeship system where we have family line businesses.
But government must intervene in terms of giving access to world class
finishing and equipment so that there can be mass production, finished products
that can compete for space in top shops in European markets.
And we also do a mass reorientation of the way our people
are thinking. The time has gone when people will talk down on the people of
Abia. We want to say that we are the best in the world and that we will attract
the attention of not only the best in Nigeria but in Africa to Abia in the days
ahead. This is our focus.
And then again, there are enablers. There are factors which
must drive this economic agenda. For instance we have the railway line again.
For the first time this administration under President Goodluck Jonathan has
opened the rail lines with trains suddenly resurfaced around Abia. And Abia is
one of the few states that have a full complement of rail line crisscrossing
five towns of Aba, Umuahia, Umuoba, Nbosi, Ovim. And from all these centres you
can access Port Harcourt, Enugu. What it means is that if our dry port which is
located between Aba and Umuahia comes on stream, with the new shopping mall
that the present administration is building, we can get goods cleared.
There is a sea port that can give us three meters raft for
barges to come at Obuaku, which we are also going to work on. What it means is
that from all these centres, through railways you can transport. Railway can do
a lot in terms of volume evacuation of goods and services and we are going to
leverage on that.
And another enabler which we should work on is this; if you
think of someone coming to Abia to make it an investment destination and he has
one billion naira, he wants to stay in a place where he can supervise his
investment. And this means that security must be paramount. Today Abia is the third
most secured state in Nigeria and there is no reason it should not be the first
most secured state in Nigeria. We can do it. I have been around for 14 years
and I understand the strategy that the present administration deployed to bring
security.
The other one is hospitals. The kind of hospitals we are
going to build now, must dovetail from this total economic agenda. If you are
investing one billion naira, we must look for a hospital that you can go to and
that can attend to your health needs. There will be no point investing one
billion naira here and then going for medical check-up in India. So, what it
means is that world class medical centres must come. Already there are 700
primary health care institutions scattered in various communities. We need to link them up to the secondary
health institutions that are at the Council Headquarters. Then there are the
tertiary institutions, the teaching hospitals, the dialysis centers, and the
diagnostics centre which is located in Umuahia. All I need to do is to create
linkage and provide facilities.
And we also want to create a diaspora village where Abians
from outside Abia or residing anywhere in the world can come and reside.
Security, service, roads infrastructure, water treatment plant and steady
supply of electricity will be provided. And the hospital in the village will be
comparable with what obtains in America and Europe. The people who are going to
run it are Abians residing overseas. So Abia can also be a destination for
healthcare delivery and covalence in the days ahead.
Abia is going to be one the first states that will benefit
from steady supply of electricity in the South East because the Geometrics
Power Plant has power there but the problem is the evacuation of that power
because of the problem they have with the distribution company. I think the
government can play a role in bringing about a discussion between Professor
Barth Nnaji, the promoter of the Geometrics and the distribution company so
that Abians will have light. And once that happens, it means our industrial
clusters will be one of the best in Africa. It means that our leather, the shoe
works, which we do, shoes, bags, belt which we are very good at can become top
of the class. And our garment industry can also come back on stream including
the textile industry that has been moribund for a while.
These are in a nut shell what we are focusing on. That
is not to forget about agriculture. We want to leverage agriculture to create
jobs; we are aiming at creating 50,000 jobs in the first two three years. We
are picking the integrated farming model because we don't have the luxury of a
large expanse of land. This is a densely populated state and so what we are
looking at is even if all we have is a football field; it should be enough for
integrated farming. So that the by products from one side of the farm can
become feeds in another section. We can also modify the Songhai model a bit to
suit our needs in Abia.
Aba is the commercial
hob of Abia State. What are your plans for this city?
People talk about Aba just because they are thinking about
votes. I talk about Aba with more passion because that is where I come from. I
don't have a house any other part of the world than in Aba. Nobody is more
interested in the Aba problem as me, because you can't be more Catholic than
the Pope. And nobody has a better plan for Aba. First, I have a proper
diagnostics of the Aba problem. Aba's problem is rooted in the fact that
infrastructural stock, in terms of drainage, houses, roads, have been static
for a while and the population has grown geometrically. And when that happens,
it means that there will be more pressure on the roads and the drainages and
they will start collapsing, whether we like it or not. What we want to do is
first of all do a ring road around Aba.
I have said earlier that Aba was in the centre of our plans
because it is at the confluence of the states in the South East South South and
our industrial clusters are going to take off from Aba. What you can get in Aba
in terms of internally generated revenue can help you develop other parts of
Abia including Umunneochi, and other places.
So we want to do a ring road while we revisit the existing
roads, remodel and redesign them.
We have two options on draining and flooding. One, there is
an underground drainage system, which has been silted to the brim and that is
why each time it rains there will be flooding. So, do we open up and use open
drainage system or do we continue with the underground system where we have to
get experts to open the underground drainage for it to enter into the Aba
River. But draining straight into the Aba River is also not environmentally
sustainable. So we are thinking about a secondary water plant around Aba River
that would capture the storm water, treat it up to secondary level and then return
it to the River so that aquatic life can thrive.
Our plan for Aba is a rebirth and a reengineering that will
drive our economic agenda. It is not about talking about the infrastructural
development of Aba for the sake of taking about it, but targeted at our
economic agenda. That is what we are going to pursue. Our development plan is
structured, and the focus is the bigger picture, our economic plan.
There seems to be
much emphasis on Aba, what about other cities in Abia State?
Abia has more than two cities. We have Umuoba, Nbosi, Ovim,
Ohafia. No other state has as many cities and these cities are urban areas in
their own right. No government has the capacity in terms of resources to do all
it wants to do. My plan is to provide what government needs to provide like
security, transport in terms of road network. It is transport that drives
economic development. Luckily for us now, all the cities I mentioned are
connected by rail. So we are going to enter into private partnership deal,
either with the Indian Railway Corporation which is one of the best managed in
the world to get air-conditioned coaches, and then retrace our rails so Abia
can in partnership with Nigerian Railways and the Indian firm own coaches that
can take people from Umuoba to Nbosi to Aba and to the dry port. If it will
take me 15 minutes by rail to convey 100 tonnes of my goods to my warehouse in
Nbosi and my warehouse is secured and is cheap, why won't I stay in Nbosi. If I
can go to work in Port Harcourt by rail in the morning from Umuoba, why won't I
live in Umuoba. That is our plan.
What do you intend to
do about the drainage and environmental challenges in Aba?
The drainage system has remained unmanned and subserviced
because it is underground. Once you have underground drainage system, you must
maintain it. You must go through it every year. And it has been left for almost
50 years and some people have also constructed buildings across the drainage
system. We have three storied buildings and churches across the drainage
systems. So that is why I say we have two options. One is either we go to open
drainage systems which is easier to maintain, which is what is done in some
states so that you can look at it and if it is blocked you can see what is
blocking it. Or you go and open the underground drainage system and it will
flow. This government has opened the major School Road gutter for the first
time in 50 years but we are yet to open the arteries that lead to the main vein.
That is the issue.
Politically and socially, you have to localize your
strengths and weaknesses. What did it take the incumbent governor to remove the
market in Umuahia to Ubani? Because he is a son of the soil. His people are the
people that own shops and if he tells them that please this is what we have to
do at this stage, and he found the political will.
For those who have constructed buildings across the
drainages, those buildings will go. One kilometer of drainage will serve the
entire city of five million people but a single house will serve just a family.
We can't allow your selfishness to put us all at risk. So we must do what we
need to do when we get there.
What plans do you
have for Internally Generated Revenue?
I have been a member of the IGR committee of Abia State that
assisted the government to move its IGR from a mere N200 million to N500
million. I know what the problems are. We must strengthen the institutions of
service. If you don't render service with your left hand, work seriously with
your left hand, you can't collect revenue with your right hand. So, we are
going to strengthen our domestic waste management template, strengthen our
service delivery institutions in whatever we do in whatever we want to collect
revenue on and then plug leakages. I am targeting revenue of two to three
billion naira every month.
If we have industrial clusters that produce our garments,
and the leather works, we do shoes better than Dubai. If we have that already,
and we are able to finish them, what the government needs to do is to open up
the market. The people that are producing cannot even market it. They must
require the instrumentality of government to give wings to the beautiful
products. Say to anybody in the world, "look I am governor and I am
wearing made in Aba shoes." You say it at any trade fair in Africa, Paris
and everywhere. How did Ghana get some of its products into Nigeria and we are
consuming them here? And these are things, which only a son of the soil,
someone who has been in the gutter with Aba and Abia people can deliver.
Are you a stooge to
anybody?
I had my doctorate degree before my 30th birthday. I have
taught in four universities, including being the external examiner of master’s
degree students of University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The last thing I can be in
this world is a professor. It is not possible for someone to think of me as a
stooge. All this can only exist within the realms of political propaganda. Almost
every candidate in the race was once in the PDP, so apparently they all wanted
to be stooges. It was when the PDP people said, “we want change, but we want to
change into certainty, we don't want to change into darkness. The civil
servants are saying, "we want to change into someone who can keep our jobs
and pay us and we don’t want to change into someone who will do right sizing,
retrench us, downsizing and we don't have the jobs at the end of the day."
There is no example of a governor in Nigeria that is anybody's stooge. And if
you played a role in canvassing for votes or helped a person to become a
governor, you can't expect the governor to be your stooge. You can only bring
ideas that are beautiful on the table and if it falls into the main frame of a
focused administration fine.
Abia people know that I am the only person that is humble
enough to entertain all shades of opinion, logic and suggestions. If your logic
is superior we will go and test it. If mine is superior you go with me. I am
not coming with any airs of arrogance. I am humble enough to say that I need
the support of the people of Abia and hopeful that they will give me.
What is your
take on the postponement of the elections?
It has only given me the opportunity to go down to the
grassroots to know exactly what the people feel and what they want me to do for
them; whatever we need to do, we must do it. Patience is virtue and if we need
patience to protect our democracy, then let us be patient. If we need patience
to make our democracy thrive, then let us keep patience. I don't believe in any
hogwash arrangements, I don't believe in putting the cart before the horse. An
impatient person is a dangerous person; a desperate person.
Does your aspiration
of taking over from Governor Orji pose any challenge for you?
The governor has enormous goodwill and he has carried
himself as a gentleman. He has a lot of respect among the elders, and the
common people of Abia. He is a huge challenge. But I know that by the time the
people understand my style the difference will show. I will try to be as
meticulous as Orji but I will run faster because I am younger.
How do you strike a
balance between politics and family?
I am a very religious person. I try to go to church every
Saturday, play football every Sunday morning but all those are threatened for
now but I accept it because they are transient. My wife is campaigning as I am
doing right now. Every member of the family is involved in it now. In future I
will return to my schedule, Saturday for the family, Sunday for play.
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