Kalu Okwara
10 October 2008
interview
Lagos — Hon. Chuma Nnaji is the Commissioner for Information in Imo state. In this interview with KALU OKWARA, he insists that they are not losing any sleep due to the Govenror Ikedi Ohakim's case at the Appeal Court even as he laments the hacking of the governor's telephone by fraudsters.
There have been text messages to different personalities purported to have been sent by Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo state demanding various amounts of money. What is your reaction to this?
It is a very unfortunate situation that certain things are still happening in Nigeria today. It is very unfortunate because at a time we thought we are laying to rest the ghost of 419 in this country, people are still perfecting the act of swindling people in high places. It is really not a healthy development for the country and economy, especially the investors. Some people tried to hack on the telephone lines of the governor and before he could realise what was happening, they had done a lot of havoc to his person and the government of Imo state and Imo people. We are not completely surprised at this development because people have continued to test the ability of the government in the state and the capability of Governor Ikedi Ohakim to withstand this unhealthy behaviour. We have continuously asked ourselves this question that why is it that at any time we have development in the court concerning the election petition, this type of thing would start to happen? I leave this to you people. This October, we will expect many more of this type of thing to happen because you should remember that October 20 will be the resumed hearing of the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt on the Imo state governorship election of April 14, 2007. So, we are not surprised.
Are you saying that the hacking of the governor's telephone is not unconnected with the appeal pending at the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt?
Yes, we are saying it is not surprising that all kinds of distractions will be brought to bear on the governor and government at this particular period because it has been a systematic thing since the aggrieved candidates in the governorship election went to court. So, it is not an unexpected development. We know that many more of such better things that will be bitter will come up.
What precautionary measures are you taking to obviate such developments?
One of the things the government has done is to alert the public in order to ensure that they are on their guard. They should be very wary of the information and request that come from unexpected quarters and they should be able to clear such information and requests from the appropriate government officials or the governor himself. That is the first step. The second one is that the telephone providers too have been alerted because as the providers, they have the responsibility of ensuring that such devices are not used against those who are their subscribers. So, there are many things to be done, but we have to be generally vigilant to this kind of a thing.
How has the pending case at the Court of Appeal, Port-Harcourt, affected the pace and performance of Governor Ohakim?
You see, we do not even know the difference between the pending case at the court as far as the governorship election in Imo state is concerned and governance. This is because what most of our politicians do not realize, and which we have realized in Imo state, is that after election, the next thing is governance. And everybody dovetails into that governance no matter the political party you belong to. It does not matter whether you are Action Congress (AC), Alliance for Democracy (AD), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) or any party at all. You operate on one stage. That is what we have succeeded in doing in Imo state and the operation on one stage includes reconciling all interests and aggrieved parties.
So, this spate of reconciliation going on in the political scene has taken place in Imo state 15 months ago. You hear of reconciliation in Kaduna, Oyo, Plateau, Kogi states and so on. It is going on all over the states. We believe that the elections have been won and lost but Imo state remains one. So, we have to bring everybody to operate under one stage, so as to move the state forward. And that was why the first thing we did was to make sure that everybody buys into the vision and programmes of Governor Ikedi Ohakim by ensuring that there is a synergy among the executive, legislative and judiciary. That synergy has worked perfectly. And having said that, the next thing is for us to continuously reconcile the aggrieved parties and to make government and the Government House accessible to all Imo people. But with that kind of atmosphere you cannot be in a position to operate effectively.
That is why once in a while, we go out of Imo state to meet with friends of Imo state. You saw what happened the other day at the Coliseum in Lagos where Governor Ohakim was honoured as the one who opened up Imo state to the whole world. Those who had not known Imo state were able to know through such interaction. Last time, he was the guest lecturer at the Aka Ikenga lecture. We do not want to have a scattered home and come out and pretend that all is well and that is why we keep on reconciling, opening up and even visiting those who do not ordinarily wish the administration well. It is a whole lot of reaching out.
Governor Ohakim was the first governor to form a unity government at the state level.
I agree with you.
Can you then say the objective of the unity government has been realised?
We were talking about peace and progress in Imo state before you now asked about this one. The unity government has contributed a lot of the peace and stability of that state. And that is why I said we do not talk about politics until election comes again. We are talking about governance, executing the programme of the government and how to promote the peoples welfare. We are talking about how to ensure that the people's aspirations are met. These are the issues. The unity government first of all, enabled many people to come forward and participate in this administration. You may not believe it that today, you have more PDP members serving in this administration, contributing their own quota than the party that threw up Ohakim as governor (PPA). Check the number of PDP members on the recently reconstituted boards of government's agencies against other members of other political parties. Governor Ohakim does not know any difference in that respect.
People keep on wondering why his administration is PDP-dominated even when he is from PPA. So, the idea of bringing everybody on board has helped in the peace and tranquility reigning in Imo state today. The people who are grumbling are very few (maybe two per cent of the state's populated) and in mathematics they are regarded as negligible). They are the people who do not feel comfortable because it is no longer business as usual. They keep on playing all kinds of intrigues, spreading falsehood against the government in the media not knowing that in doing that, they are destroying the foundation of the same government they want to take control of. The situation we have in politics today in Nigeria generally is an irony. The Imo state government under the leadership of Governor Ikedi Ohakim has signed many memoranda of understanding and how can you operationalise these memoranda of understanding if continuously the government is put on the edge or you distract the governor all the time.
It is not possible expect by the will of God and expect we start telling the prospective investors that Imo state is peaceful and that they should disregard whatever the few aggrieved people are saying. How can somebody say, for example, all the roads tarred by the government, is only 40 kilometers? But the truth is that we have tarred over 64 roads and none of these roads is less than 18 kilometers. I personally took newsmen around during our one year anniversary. For three days, we were on the road. These 64 roads are there and are verifiable. The local governments areas are there, they can be contacted for verification. The kinds of roads we are constructing is not for short term measure. The government has spent about N32 billion on roads. If you measure these roads and get the amount per kilometer, you will find out that Imo state roads are the cheapest in the country.
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