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.
What has been the response of the prospective investors?
As I am talking to you now, the farmers from South Africa are already in the state. Very soon, the gas company will start operation and those working on the Wonder Lake are also around. You know the Wonder Lake is a star programme of the present administration. The loan we have been trying to get from the financial market will be committed to it. Investors are coming because they are interested in the state. I do not think the propaganda of the aggrieved parties will affect them because they come and they discover that Imo state is what they think it should be.
Now looking back to the last 15 months, can you say that the objective of the Clean and Green programme of Governor Ohakim-led administration in Imo state is still on course?
Why not. Two months ago or there about, Owerri, the capital of Imo state was adjudged the cleanest city in Nigeria by the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Environment. And as I am talking to you, the same ministry has sited its Zonal Environmental Nazrel dealing with environmental issues in Owerri. That makes Owerri the zonal headquarters of that programme. It is because of the confidence they have in what we are doing in the environment sector. A lot is happening in terms of our environmental sanitation and environmental programmes. Many people are coming. You can see that Lagos state has started their own. What we did over a year ago, that is what they are trying to do now.
The decision of the administration to embark on Clean and Green programme is well thought out. If you want to welcome your visitor, you have to keep yourself clean. If a man is inviting you to dinner and his living room is dirty, that itself becomes the first thing to turn you off and not the food. Therefore, it is logical that if you are trying to open up your state to the outside world, you must have that inner heart burning desire to ensure that your environment is clean. What people do not realise is that with the law on Environment, which we have in Imo state, we are going to the second stage of the environmental sanitation programme in the state and that is that stage where we are going to be providing so much employment to people. We will start looking at the waste-to-wealth aspect of the programme, producing organic fertilizer and so on. People think when we talk of environmental sanitation, we are trying to displace people from their shanties, but it goes beyond that. That is just the first stage to ensure that water ways are running.
Due to the opening up of those structures built on sewage ways, you cannot see any flooding again in Owerri today except in one or two places. Also, as part of our programme of encouraging a beautiful city with free- flow of traffic and sewageways, the government is dualising all the federal governments entry roads to the state capital. This will add to the beauty of the city.
Why has the local government election not been conducted in Imo state? Could it be due to the belief in some quarters that it is deliberately been delayed because the governor is afraid of possibly not winning the number of local government areas as he would want to?
The delay in the conduct of the local government election was not caused by this administration. What happened was that there are so many reasons why the local government election have been delayed till today. There was a committee set up on the reforms of the local government. The committee spent so much time in their investigations and report writing. There were so many things they recommended. The committee wanted to know if we are going parliamentary or to remain in the presidential system. What are the issues that have made our local government not to be productive? And if you watch the style of this administration, you will know that we want to do things in the 21st century way.
That is why after receiving the report of the committee headed by Chief Bon Onuakanma (SAN), the government had to further subject the report to the public opinion. The government decided to send this report to the local governments through their leadership to review it before we finally agree on how to run the local government. I will tell you that the government took the pains to explain all this because of the experience in the past. You may not believe it that most of our local government chairmen for the past 10 years were not able to even tar a kilometer road. You may not believe it that many of them do not even have a functional guest house for the chairman, yet, the current Local Government Act provides that the council chairmen must at the local government area. But they cannot because most of them could not build befitting accommodation for the council chairman despite the improved allocation to the council. The outsider may know what is happening. The interest of most politicians is to go back and make it business as usual.
By the time we finish what we are doing in the area of local government reform, people will now know that this administration is bent on doing the right things. Even as we are talking, I will not mention names, but there are some states in the country that have not even appointed care-taker chairman but we have done that twice. If we do not have the willingness to conduct local government election, why then are we doing that? We are doing that because issues pertaining to council reform will have to be completely exhausted before we go into local government election. Coming to the second leg of your question, I will assure you that the government is not afraid. Ikedi Ohakim-led administration has consolidated to the extent that if you conduct the local government election today, it will not be a question of PPA or PDP, people will vote according to the candidates presented to them. So, I do not understand what people mean by saying the governor is afraid of other parties rather than will not find their feet. No, it is a different ball game when it comes to voting for personalities irrespective of their political affiliations.
As we await the judgment of the Court of Appeal, are you optimistic that Governor Ohakim will be victorious?
It has been the style of Governor Ohakim and officials in his administration not to talk so much about the judgement of the Court of Appeal because we do not want the court to be distracted. We want the eminent jurists to do their job dispassionately with the rule of law in mind. Mind you, the rule of law is one of the seven-point agenda of President Umaru Yar'Adua. So, we have sparingly, even as Commissioner for Information, spoken on the case pending at the Appeal Court, Port Harcourt, except of course, when the opposition provokes us and we want to put the record straight.
So, it is not our style to comment on the court proceedings because we know that so far, the respected judges have done their work in a systematic manner and despite all kinds of provocations and insinuations, they have maintained a level head right from the Election Petition Tribunal to the Appeal Court. Although I am not a lawyer, I believe they have sufficient evidence to arrive at a judgment that everybody will consider to be a fair judgment. We are very optimistic that at the end of the day, Ikedi Ohakim will carry the day because we have followed the case till this period. We have doubt in our mind whatsoever because everything that has to be said has been said.
And if you read the judgment of the Tribunal you cannot fault it. Even the opposition cannot fault it. So, we are hopeful. We have continued to run the government but in other places, they could use the pending case as raison d'etre for not performing. But it is during this period that ThisDay Newspaper gave Governor Ohakim an award as the best governor in Nigeria and the Federal Government named Owerri as the cleanest city in Nigeria and still during this period that Ikedi Ohakim won different leadership awards in governance. We have been able to achieve so much without any distractions and we are marching on. I want to assure you that there is no trepidation in the Government House nor do we lose any sleep because of the impending judgment at the Appeal Court. We know the judges will do the right thing. We trust them and we have no reason not to trust them because the judiciary has been a shining example, showing how to practice the rule of law in a decent society. And we in Imo state have also tried to be part and parcel of the rule of law.
What is your final message to Imo people?
I have been in Imo state for the past 10 years talking and practicing politics. The people are very resilient. I know Imo people whether at home or in the Diaspora are very keen in knowing what is happening at home. Imo state government is the most downloaded website in the federation because our people want to know what is happening to their government, their local government and their communities etc. That is why I always advise that they should be patient with some of these things because some of the projects will take time to mature.
For instance, about the Wonder Lake project, many people do not even understand that it will give us a lot of leverage in the areas of employment, opening up Imo state as hub of tourism and entertainment centre in Nigeria. As soon as the rains stop, we are going to kick-off again on our road construction and those that have not seen theirs materialize with a little patience will see it. The people have to be patient and also continue to pray for this administration. So that Governor Ikedi Ohakim can continue to maintain his level-headedness in spite of all provocations. They should support the government because it means well for them and should not listen to the falsehood of the opposition.
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