Deji Elumoye
8 October 2008
interview
Lagos — Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom state recently held an interactive session with newsmen on the activities of his administration and how it has impacted positively on the people in the last one and half years. He also used the forum to comment on his relationship with his predecessor, Obong Victor Attah and vows to forge ahead despite the myriad of petitions already written against his government. Deji Elumoye was at the session.
How would you describe your relationship with your predecessor in office?
Well I thank you for that question because the relationship with predecessor in office has been of concern all over the country, not just in Akwa Ibom State. People are really concerned about it. But I don't think that should be the focus. The focus should be that new governors have come into office, how do they perform?
People expect a lot of things from governors. Their performance would not be measured on how well they related with their predecessors? There would always be predecessors. They, in their time, had predecessors and that did not stop them from carrying out their assignments..
My relationship with my predecessor, Obong Victor Attah, I believe, is cordial. However, there are still a lot of people who believe that for them to remain relevant, they must continue to rake up all these rumours of disaffection. Having said that you have to remember that sometimes it is difficult for an incumbent to totally please his predecessor because there are certain policies of his predecessor that he must change.
The change may even be as little as changing personnel of parastatal, or by way of changing policy direction or altering what is on ground. If you have to bring your own initiative to bear on trying to actualise your own vision for the people, such steps may not be to the liking of your predecessor.
The fact remains that predecessors must realize that government has changed. And with such change, policy direction must also change, government personnel must change, etc.
What is important in the whole thing is that you have to employ political maturity in relating with the predecessor, two of you must not agree on all issues but efforts must be made to maintain peace and cordial relationship. For me, like I said earlier, my relationship with Obong Attah is cordial.
Despite that I reiterate that there are certain decisions, on a daily basis, I am bound to take, which I know that my predecessor might not like.. For instance, when we came on board, my predecessor left behind a drawing which was meant to be the renovation of the existing government lodge that he was staying in, the place had become dilapidated. The estimate for the renovation was N1.8billion. I said that I will not renovate it, when I can build a new lodge with N2.2billion. Opposition came from left, right and centre. But I know that I have a mandate in my hand, and the mandate is to take good decision on behalf of Akwa Ibom people.
So when somebody comes to say Oh! You should have renovated it, it does not matter whether it collapses tomorrow ,I said no.
Do you have instances when you sought the input of the former governor in the course of taking certain decisions?
I have had private audience with him on three occasions. In those instances, I sought his views on some programmes of my administration. He obliged me some answers. The reason why in Akwa Ibom, it looked like a seamless transition is because I was also part of his government for about five and a half years. I was one of the commissioners. I served in three different ministries- Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and Lands and Housing. I knew in a nutshell all the projects that were initiated. When I came on board, I resolved that those projects must be continued because I believe they were in the best interest of the people of Akwa Ibom. Because I was part of the administration, it was easy to quickly move in and ensure the completion of those projects. I did not just continue with the projects, I continued with the contractors handling them, the contractors on site.
For instance, the Independent Power Plant, the major contractors from South Africa are still the ones working there now. The project has reached almost 35 per cent completion.
And of course, there was no need seeking his opinion on that. The scenario in Akwa Ibom is unlike some other states where new governors came in, who probably were not part of the former administration, and tried to change what was on ground. Such governors who were not part of the former government need to, from time to time, seek the views and input of their predecessors. In my own case ,I served in the former government for five and a half years.
Apart from continuing with the projects of the former administration, I retained most of the commissioners. I retained about five members of the cabinet. Even the commissioner of Finance of that administration is the current Secretary to the State Government (SSG). The commissioner for Economic Development became my pioneer commissioner for Education. I just changed him few weeks ago.
The then Head of Civil Service is my Special Adviser on Public Service matters. So it was almost like a seamless transition. Almost the same players were brought in because there was need for continuity.
In the last one and a half years you have been in power, there have been several petitions written against you, almost more than that of other administrations before you, why do you think this kind of thing is happening and what are you doing about it?
Well first of all, I don't think, petitions against me are more than that of my predecessors. It is unfair and inaccurate to make such claim. The last administration had its own dose of petitions.
Petitions are not just starting with Godswill Akpabio and I don't think they have increased in magnitude. You have to understand that some people have constituted themselves into opposition.. Let me take you back, when Obong Victor Attah came into government in 1999, there was no primaries, they did what they called consensus and he was hand picked by few people. In my own case, we went through a terrible PDP primaries. There were about 68 aspirants, the highest in the history of this state. By the time one person emerged you know the other 67 camps will not just go to sleep. You can imagine that within the first one year in office, those camps who are unhappy will not find anything good in the administration. Initially I was worried but later I told myself that I would be judged not based on how much I tried to stop petition writers but what my administration is able to put on ground. So I drew a line and moved on with my administration. I think what anybody who is familiar with Akwa Ibom should be asking is that in the past years in the governance of the state, no administration has been able to achieve what we are able to achieve in one year. I am happy that indigenes of the state are saying so, some Nigerians who know the state are also saying so. I tell you, in a comparative analysis what we have achieved in one year in office, no administration in the last 10 or 15 years did that. We commissioned 266 projects in one day. The projects are not those that were initiated by anybody. They were initiated and completed by my administration within one year. We were able to give electricity to close to 200 communities.
We went to the University of Uyo and tarred the internal roads of the university. These were roads that were never touched in several decades. The University had lost over 28 courses because of lack of accreditations. Students were roaming the streets without graduating in departments like Economics. Some of these students were in the departments for five to seven years.
Students of Medicine could not get accreditation. Within one year in office, we have recovered the 28 courses. We have commissioned other projects in the university including a 1000 sitting capacity classroom. These are verifiable. We have changed the school's landscape. The mobile police were staying under the tree until we built a befitting office. They were in such agonizing condition for 13 years,. We have dug borehole and constructed roads for rural communities. Before now, several parts of the state had no road. For instance Ikot Ekpene local Government, the only roads, they had were built in the 70s. The roads had turned into gullies. We intervened in 25 urban roads. We have commissioned many of them.
I tell you when, I commissioned market road in Ikot Ekpene, a woman brought out her wrapper and spread it on the floor. She insisted that the governor that did this must walk on the wrapper so that she will take the wrapper and keep for her children. She said that she never thought that in her life time the roads would be done.
In Eket, we are doing about 49 roads, the women of Eket sang a song that God's will had been done in Eket. Before now the roads were left to the oil company, Exxon Mobil. The company wrote me a letter in appreciation of what we did. What we are doing is a major transformation.
In Oron, we are doing about 34 urban roads, Ikot Abasi 18 roads. We are also, for the first time, repairing federal roads up to the tune of 43 billion naira.
In Itu, we are dualising from Ikot-Ekpene to Aba . The Airport road is also being constructed. All these are federal roads. People are happy because these projects are not on paper, the public and everybody are seeing them directly.
There is a community called Ika, it was cut off for about 15 years, nobody could access it with a car. SETRACO has constructed the roads that were hitherto impassable.
I went to US last August to address Akwa Ibom indigenes in diaspora. Somebody told a story of how he could not recognize the road to his place because it used to be in a terrible shape. These is the kind of story that makes me happy. People on their own giving account of what is happening in the state without being prodded.
In the entire South South, Akwa Ibom is the only state that runs free education from primary to Secondary level. We are providing text books, we are also paying N300 per child in secondary school. The state is sacrificing more than N7billion yearly for this free education. We want to fight militancy, we want to fight kidnapping by ensuring that we have a literate population.
The only man that successfully ran free education was Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the old western region. It worked for the Western Nigeria . Akwa Ibom must change. I don't want to dissipate my energy listening to petition writers. I want to be judged by the things I leave on ground when my tenure ends.
Can you give a detailed explanation on what your administration has done with the IPP project and the contribution so far made by the federal government?
IPP was initiated by my predecessor but federal government bought into it. The federal government came and re-financed it to the tune of about $80 million. But as we speak, the state government has spent over $200m on the project. The initial output would be about 91 mega watts and the second phase will be about 600 mega watts.
Why I am excited about even the 191 mega watts is because the entire state needs about 70 mega watts. This will supply power to the state. The project can give light to the state, Cross River and probably Bayelsa or Abia.
With the arrangement we have with the NIPP, we can afford to retain what we produce and the rest will go to the national grid: That is the interesting aspect of it. And if we achieve that, automatically, it means that Nigeria is getting somewhere. My prayer is that as we turn on the turbine, there will be no hitches. We will do that this October.
Despite the federal governmentís involvement to the tune of $80 million, right now $30m is needed to complete it. The state government is funding it. I am committed to ensuring that we bring it to an end, that is why a lot is being done here since I came in.
The other challenges will still be there in terms of distribution. You know after generation some other groups will do the distribution. So the challenges are there in terms of transmission and distribution.
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