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2007: South East will not go back on the
presidency —Egwu
For Governor Sam Egwu of Ebonyi State, who recently marked
his 50th birthday, there is no going back on the clamour for the zoning of the
presidency to the South East zone by governors and politicians from the zone.
Egwu bared his mind on this, and other critical issues in a chat with some
journalists in Abakaliki, the state capital. IHEANACHO NWOSU was there.
Excerepts:
CAN you tell us precisely the area you would say your administration has made the greatest impact and why is it
so?
I think it is in the area of education because this is a
programme that has touched every family in the state. Both the poor and the rich
know that something good has happened in their environment.
I had felt like going to every family who were not in a
position to send their children to school to give all of them money. But, again,
I told myself that even if I give them money it will not solve their problem, so
I concluded that giving everybody opportunity to go to school is the best. And
people are happy about it. There is a student from Imo State, who is in the
university, who wrote me telling me that he will forever be grateful, that I
made him to be educated with the free education programme.
During the electioneering period, each time I went to
campaign, people would not allow me to speak. They would queue up, giving me
sovenirs. Families will come out and tell me “governor, as far as we are
concerned, we are for you, don’t say anything. All we want to tell you is that
we are happy, thank you.”
There was a day we went out for a campaign, the following
day people had to come and say that we did not receive their gifts the previous
day at their local government headquarters, so they had come to give them to me.
It was a problem then accepting all the people that wanted to show appreciation.
I feel touched when I see these kind of sentiments.
How do you sustain this kind of money guzzling programme
when it is clear that Ebonyi State gets a slim allocations monthly?
Ebonyi State still maintains its second to the last
position in monthly federal allocations. But like I always said, it depends on
how you manage your resources. If you have N10 billion and you want to spend it
in two weeks, there are a lot of things you can spend it on. The question will
be are they really relevant? Are they worth spending on? Are the things
necessary for such an expenditure? We spend a lot on education because we know
that it is the tool our people need to liberate themselves from poverty.
The time I went to London for the first time to see our
students who are studying in different universities there, even though we pay
their normal school fees and render other assistance, as a father normally does
to his child when he visits him in school, I still gave them a thousand pounds
each and by the time it is calculated, it came to millions of naira.
I don’t play with that area - education. Any amount, I am
ready to spend it on education. Because at the end of the day that is the real
thing that will make a difference in people’s lives.
This reminds me about one local music that used to sing
Obodo nile doziela, ofodu Okigwe n’Orlu, na ndi na’chi Okigwe amara akwukwo (All
communities have developed except Okigwe and Orlu, rulers of Okigwe are not
educated) Laughs).
A musician sang it those days. That rulers of Okigwe are
not educated and that is largely the reason why Okigwe had remained undeveloped.
It shows you that without education you cannot achieve real development.
Ebonyi state has been backward all these years, why,
because of that song. The song is still relevant up till today. So I want to
change that situation so that we can be in the league of those who are
developed.
Controversy had trailed the conduct of elections in new
local governments. The allocations were held by the federal government, but you
seem to have resolved your own problem with the FG and one of the strategies you
adopted was to rename the LGs as development centres. Where does that leave the
new councils?
For your information, I heard from the grapevine that all
the states concerned have done same. Apart from education, new councils are the
other government programme in the state that is very popular. It is so because
it gives people information, hope, independence, and opportunity to manage their
own resources.
So, I told Mr. President in my letter, that the 13 local
governments are there but the additional ones, I regard them as my development
centres at the grassroot. The situation in Ebonyi State is peculiar. There was
need for us to carry that liberation we got through the state creation, down to
the grassroot. And the only way to do that is to create LGs. So that is what we
did as centres of development.
I told Mr. President, when the party said we should
conduct election in old councils, I did the same thing and sent results to
headquarters, bearing 13 LGs. Wards were not changed, polling booths were not
changed. It is the same position they occupied in old LGs that they occupy now.
There is no way I will conduct elections and say because this is a new local
government, there will be no election there. I conducted election every where.
But in collating the results, we made sure that we collated them based on the
old LGs and sent to Abuja. I told him “Mr. President, this is what I have done.
My 13 LGs are there but, I created additional councils as centre, for
development. And as far as I am concerned I have not gone contrary to the
constitution or directive of the party.”
So he sent my letter to the Attorney-General for advice.
And the man advised him to release our funds.
Are the new councils still operative and what name do they
bear now?
They are still operative. They are all development centres.
Whether you call it LGs or not, for me I have not changed their names, they
still bear LGs. The level of activities going on in these new councils give me a
lot of joy. They are even doing better than the old ones. They have done well.
Like I said my type of politics is not where I say one
thing and people go and verify it and discover it is false. So if you go to the
new councils, you will marvel at the level of development there. They have got
their secretariats. Infact they have always been asking me to come and
commission their secretariats and their secretariats are bigger than the old LGs.
They are constructing feeder roads and other amenities. If the councils were not
popular, there wont be demand for them. People will say that this is a channel
of looting their resources. But people are happy with the councils. The councils
are popular because they are performing. The demand is there.
If the LGs had not been performing, more communities will
not be demanding for their own LGs. What they have seen have impressed them.
The allegation is that state executives are hiding under
the new councils to mismanage the resources of the LGs, what is your reaction to
this?
For the local government/state joint account, I want to
say that, I am not boasting, that I would like to invite the press, infact the
time I learnt that the National Assembly Committee on local government was
visiting, I was happy. But unfortunately, the planned visit was aborted. I don’t
know why, but I would have loved them to come to Ebonyi State and look at what
we have done.
We have followed the constitution to the letter about
running local government joint account.
You need to interview the council chairmen. They are
people that if you tamper with their money, they will be on the roof top to say
it. I know what obtains in other states, I am not indicting anybody. Recently, I
read in the newspapers a state where its councils chairmen were complaining that
their money is being tampered with.
If I was tampering with their money at the period the
allocations were with held, there won’t be any money left in the account.
Because we are following the constitution which provides that certain percentage
should be left as a stabilisation fund and because that account is being kept,
the time the money was seized I asked the chairman of the joint account what was
left in the account and he told me that we had over N300 million. I directed
them to pay the councils for the month the money was seized. If we were
reckless, if we had been siphoning the money, there would not be anything left
there.
You see, if you are not prudent, even as an individual,
you won’t have a reserve in your purse for the rainy day. That is the simple
logic. If you spend recklessly, in the rainy day you won’t have anything to fall
back on. We had N300 million as stabilization.
By adopting the strategy you used to get the federal
government to release your own allocation, don’t you think that it might affect
the court action which was meant to determine the legality or otherwise of the
new councils and federal government’s action?
You need to be alive to fight a battle. That is basic. You
don’t fight a war if you are not alive. And, like I have always said, if one’s
war strategy is going to lead to many casualties, even though he may win the
war, it is better to adopt another strategy that will make you win the war
without casualties.
So what I have done is for my own people. I am not against
my colleagues going to court. What they are doing is legal.
The South East leadership of PDP said that they would like
to export you, that is, to have you represent Nigerians in a high capacity at
the expiration of your tenure in 2007. How do you take such pronouncements?
I have become a product for export (laugh). Well on a very
serious note, this is not my first time of hearing such comments. My position is
that I will leave everything to God. You have heard my testimony. This position
I am holding today, I did not canvass for it, but it pleased God to place me
here to serve his people.
If God who has put me in this position feels that I still
have an opportunity to do other things, who am I to say no? But for now I still
believe that the mandate I have is for governorship. And I will do all within my
power to serve my people.
What is your position on the controversy concerning the
geo-political zone that the presidency should be zoned to in 2007?
Well, I am one of those who believe that the South East
zone should have the slot. The north has been having it all along. And according
to other eminent Nigerians, the presidency has not been zoned to any side as
being claimed by the north. The president said it clearly the other day that the
party has not zoned the presidency to the north. So we are still canvassing that
it should come to the east.
It is not for governors, we have eminent Igbos in various
positions, highly placed, highly respected, who are qualified to hold that
position. It is not that we governors canvassing it are doing so because we want
one of us to become president. No, that is not it.
This time around, let me also say that we are committed to
this campaign. Some people say that we did not support the cause in 2003. But
let me say that we should understand the dynamics of power. This was a situation
where an incumbent wanted to run. Whether you like it or not, it is difficult to
defeat an incumbent president.
Are you saying now that if a respected Igbo politician
like Ekwueme should show interest in the top position again, you the governors
will give him overwhelming support?
If Dr. Alex Ekwueme will be interested in 2007, let me
talk as an individual, he will have my support and I am sure the South East
governors will also give him full support.
The South East Governors Forum seems to be in disarray.
There appears to be division, to the extent that you people are finding it
difficult to agree on issues. How correct is this belief?
If you say we have not been having regular meetings, I
don’t think you are correct. We have been having meetings. It is just may be
Gov. Orji Uzor Kalu who has not been attending regularly. I have tried to
convince him to be attending. Not only him, the governor of Anambra also.
Don’t you think that their lack of interest in the meeting
may stem from the fact that the South East governors did not show much support
to them when they had problems?
I don’t think it is true to say that. When Ngige had
problem, I was the first governor to go to Anambra State. I came to Awka before
any other person. It was after I left the place that Orji Kalu went there. When
I went there I condemned the action of the abductors. I said it that it was a
civilian coup, that it was absolutely condemnable to attempt to remove a sitting
governor. So anybody saying that we did not rally round Ngige may not be saying
what is on the ground.
A number of governors in many states have disclosed that
they know their successors, do you also have in mind who to hand the baton to?
To be honest with you, I don’t know. Rather I am praying
that God will send somebody He feels will be competent and able to start from
where I will stop. I have told them, I have said it loudly that if anybody
thinks that I am going to endorse him or her, that person must be making a
mistake.
I know my party has a role to play but I will feel better
when the view of the common man are the determinant because you see them moving
around but when the chips are down they will tell you this is the person we
trust, this is the man we know. The problem we always have is that though we
have political parties, but if you take a global view of the people in a state
and by extension in the country, total party members have never exceeded 20 per
cent of the population, that is active members of all the political parties. The
80 per cent are people who don’t belong to any party and they don’t want to
belong to any party especially in our Nigeria context.
But these people are the ones who will take the decision
when the minority have brought out their candidates and they are projected to
the masses. Party is an instrument for the projection of an individual. The 80
per cent have a duty to say “we have seen you candidates and will now take
decision on who we want.”
If things go the way they should go, without any party or
other manipulations like coercion or financial persuasion the 80 per cent will
say this is the person we want. So it is only when this is done that there will
be real peace after elections.
But the minority 20 per cent that forms political parties
try to impose a wrong candidate on the people. And the majority 80 per cent will
say no, this is not the person we want. And if they succeed by coercion to force
that person on them, there can never be peace in that state until the end of the
tenure of that person they put there.
For me, Ebonyi has been peaceful for a long time except
during the period some people wanted to use force to take over the leadership of
the state. And I have always said that these individuals that go about saying
that they should be the kingmakers or that they are the king makers, have always
influenced and want to enjoy government patronage at the expense of the masses.
I was telling people, it was not that Ebonyi was having
crisis because people were saying, “governor, you are not doing his well.” If
that was so, I would not have been comfortable being their governor, I would
prefer to resign.
But it was just a clique who felt that at the end of every
allocation, I should call them and say, “okay, let us agree on how to share the
money.” This was the group.
If you are a governor, the first thing you will face, I
told my councils chairmen when I inaugurated them, is some individuals in the
locality who will feel that they are the owners of the local government and if
you don’t consult and give them part of the money you get monthly, they will
foment trouble.
But I told them if they are able to tell them from day one
that please, this allocation that is coming is for the development of our area.
Well I will give you due respect but don’t expect me to come and account to
you.” Once you tell them that, they will try to fight you but if they know that
the governor will support you they will steer clear.
That is what has been happening and that has influenced my
decision and that is what will influence my decision at the time we will be
going into 2007.
I will try to know who the people want. People know every
politician, they know all these people who are positioning themselves for
governorship. Some are even using my name, saying that I asked them to do this
or that. Like I said, only God knows my successor. It might not even be any of
these people who are parading themselves as my possible successors.
What quality would you want your successor to possess?
As far as the person is not aggressive. It must be
somebody who genuinely thinks and dreams of the masses. People are suffering.
Every of the person’s actions must centre on God. Any person who has all these,
I think, has more than 60 per cent of the qualities.
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