...Plans To Convert gas flaring to power, If Voted

Pastor Ukodhiko Jonathan Ajirioghene, is a business man and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, House of Representatives Candidate for Isoko Federal Constituency.

He is a man of strong character, a team player, a philanthropy of inestimable philanthropic disposition, a wealth creator and a servant of God. His philosophy of life is that every human lives for two things-for God and humanity. Pastor Ukodikho, in this explosive interview with Vanguard, spoke on Isoko marginalization, his aspiration as the Isoko Representative at the National Assembly and what he hopes to achieve for his people, why power must be removed from the exclusive list of the federal government, the chances of PDP in the forth coming election and other sundry issues.

Excerpts :

Your candidacy came as a surprise as some were very excited, others had mixed feelings as to what to expect. They feel that they have not been duly represented these past years. And you made a lot of promises to Isoko people during your declaration ceremony. As their prospective representative, what do you think Isoko people are lacking currently at the national level?

Isoko is a unique ethnic nationality in Delta State and Nigeria as a whole. A lot of things have to be done with a view to alleviating the suffering of our people. If you look at Isoko geographically; it is one of the enthic groups that produce the highest number of oil per barrel on daily basis (450,000). Isoko Nation contributes greatly to the economy of Nigeria, yet our people are living in extreme deprivation. It saddens my heart that what we contribute is in deep contrast to what we get. If you move around Isoko, you will observe that there is high rate of poverty. For me, I feel the oil companies in Isoko are not doing enough to improve the living standard of our people. I intend to change the narrative if elected and I know by the special grace of God I will win the election. My first point of call if given the mandate is to unite Isoko people. Unity is a recipe for development. For instance, if you look at oil exploration in Isoko land over the years, you will notice that we are not getting our fair share. Our people are not patronized in terms of award of contracts by oil companies operating in our land. There is darkness across Isoko despite the massive gas flaring in all the flow stations. The question is, why can’t we work in collaboration with the oil companies to convert these gas being flared to power. If you look at all those places, you will realize that all the oil facilities-flow stations, housing estates and so on are experiencing 24 hours power supply and our communities are living in perpetual darkness. Why can’t the oil companies extend power supply to the host communities as their cooperate social responsibility to the Isoko communities!

Talking about gas flaring, 2030 is the bench mark year for stoppage in gas flaring in Nigeria. What will you do differently from other Isoko representatives if given the opportunity to represent Isoko Nation in the House of Representatives?

If you know my antecedents, you will know for a fact that I have been working in the oil and gas industry for a long time, which means I know how the system operates. I will establish an even partnership arrangement with our communities and oil companies in collaboration with the state government to engender socio-economic advancement. There is need to have a round table discussion with the oil companies in our locality to see how our people can benefit maximally from the oil exploration.

Available information indicates that such round table discussion had been held in time past, specifically, a year ago, yet nothing tangible to show for it. So, how do you intend to go about it this time to achieve result?

The reality staring us in the face is that law is easy to make, but implementation is the problem. Look at Nigeria, how many laws are working? We need to look at some of these laws critically in order to know the challenges confronting it implementation, then we can have clarity on how to surmount it. A constructive round table discussion can provide us blue print as to what the law says and what needs to be done to get the desired results. If you look at what I call ‘gas flaring politics’, you will realize that something has to be done by government to address the issue, not mere words without action. The government had said many times over that it was going to stop gas flaring and even imposed tariffs on some of the gases that they are flaring, yet no impact. But I believe with the Petroleum Industry Act coming handy, we will make additional progress.

If given the mandate by your people as their representatives at the House of Representatives, what two bills would you pass?

Power must be removed from the Exclusive List of the federal government for Nigeria to make headway. Firstly, I will introduce a bill to remove power from the Exclusive List, secondly, employment generation bill. We must come up with a bill for government to mandate private companies to employ our people in order to enhance socio-economic development.

One of the cardinal points of your manifesto are peace building and bridge building. What do you think is the underground shakeups facilitating the division in Isoko land?

The high rate of excruciating poverty in the land is a serious concern! Wherever poverty abound, there is crisis too and this is common across the world, not only in Nigeria. Now, if you look at Nigeria, you will notice that those areas where poverty takes the front burner, there is unemployment, poor infrastructure, insecurity, poor standard of living among other things. We need to do everything possible to eliminate poverty or better still reduce it to the barest minimum.

In a definitive term, what is are the causes of poverty and how can it be eliminated?

Like I said earlier, one of the causes of poverty is unemployment. And I can tell you for a fact that if you fix the issue of power supply, then poverty will be reduced drastically. When there is power supply, investors will come and establish industries and our people will be gainfully employed. Once we get power supply right, every other thing follows.

As a former Commissioner for Energy and Power in Delta State, what were you able to do to address the issue of power in the state and Isoko land?

Well, I served as commissioner for eight months, and within that period the state government did a lot to address the issue. Delta is the only state in this country that has invested more in power supply. Interestingly, power is in the exclusive list of the Federal Government. And this means that power generation, transmission and distribution is the exclusive prerogative of the federal government. Recently, the power sector was privatized and ceded to private companies to run its affairs! And you know for a fact that since its privatization, power supply has degenerated to a worrisome extent. Today, we are producing less than 22,000 megawatts of electricity across the country. What can a paltry 22,000 megawatts of electricity do for a country like Nigeria with over 200,000,000 people? When Delta under the purposeful leadership of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa came on board, it invested so much in power knowing full well that power supply was now a private business. He provided transformers, upgraded electricity facilities across communities among other things in a bid to serve the people.

Isoko is an area so resourcefully blessed in the area of oil and gas, which is the nation’s main stay. The big question is, where is the opportunity for the powering of turbines to tap into this wastage of gas flaring that is supposed to end in 2030?

Most of my working experience was in the oil and gas industry before I ventured into business, and now politics. We can achieve a lot considering my wealth of experience in oil and gas, employment generation and wealth creation. These three cardinal areas are the major things I want to do for my people. Like I said earlier without power, nothing works. I am going to work closely with all the oil companies operating in Isoko land. One of the things I am going to do as former Commissioner for Energy in Delta, is to see how we can create an independent power supply in our land so as to engender growth and development. And that cannot be done if we don’t have the enabling environment. I also know that the constitution also empowers state governments to legislate and provide purposeful leadership. This means they can also legislate to provide power for their people. During my brief stint as a commissioner, one of the first things I did was to discuss with Governor Okowa on how to make laws that would enable us to make reasonable impact. I meant laws that enables us to generate, transmit and distribute power. I told the governor that for my independent power vision to come to fruition, we needed to make laws that would enable us to generate, transmit and distribute power. The governor gave me express permission to do that. So, my then Ministry of Energy worked collaboratively with the Delta State House of Assembly to put up a Bill and submitted to the National Assembly and it was signed into law. As of today, Delta State has the legal backing to generate , transmit and distribute power. In addition, the ongoing Constitution review where there is clamor for power to be removed from the exclusive list of the federal government and if the various state house of assembly are able to pass that law, then local governments and communities now have the legal right to provide power for themselves. We can build power now like what is obtainable in developed countries. Instead of the system in place now where we generate power, send it to Osogbo, national grid and other places before distribution across the country, we can now generate power on our own as a community, local government and state. With such break through in power supply, foreign investors will troop into Nigeria to invest in the power sector. Local governments can now build a considerable amount of power to provide electricity for its people. With such development, the country can develop at a faster rate.

As a prospective lawmaker, what’s your manifesto?

One of the cardinal points of my aspiration is to unite Isoko together; provide meaningful development; generate wealth; empower the Girl-Child; provide quality education and to provide good healthcare services for our people. I am optimistic that once we are able to achieve these developmental aspirations, Isoko Nation will be whole again.

What initiatives have you put in place for Isoko youths in order to harness their potentials, because their voices seems not be heard enough in Isoko land?

Looking at Isoko today, you will realize we have a very large population of youths. We are talking about vibrant youths, well educated and extremely talented without jobs. There is no family in Isoko Nation that you will not find at least four to five graduates with masters and doctorate degrees. We are going to harness the potentials of our youths! And how do we intend to do that? First, we are going to re-orientate the youths because most of them are frustrated and disillusioned due to lack of jobs. Afterwards, we will engage them in skill acquisition trainings to boost their morale so that they can become self employed. I always tell people that in developed climes, it is not the duty of government to provide jobs for the people rather it is the private sector that generates employment for the citizens.

We have always had this constant skill acquisition initiatives which does not translate to wealth or jobs, so; could you give us a definitive point of action towards engaging the youths to get results?

Apart from the skill acquisition initiatives; we are all going to bring innovations into it. When they finish the skill acquisition exercise, we are going to train them on entrepreneurial development. A person may be skilled but if you cannot translate that skill into wealth creation, it will be a waste of time, efforts and resources. Some of us know how to generate wealth and we are going to put our wealth-generation initiatives into action when given the mandate. For instance, when I finished from school, there were no jobs. I went to learn hand work, specifically, plumbing. After learning plumbing for about year, I looked at areas I can apply this skill so as to create wealth. Then I decided to go into the oil industry and started learning how to repair valves. Afterwards, I started to repair valves and ware heads in the oil and gas sector and petrochemical industry and I am still doing these till date. From these areas, I expanded to other areas today. So, it’s same thing we are going to apply so as to create wealth for our people. After the youths may have learnt skills, we will attach them to mentors in their respective skills so that when they start generating wealth, they will not waste it. It is one thing to generate wealth and it is another thing to use it judiciously so that it will not be wasted. For instance, a person makes N20,000,000 and uses N15,000,000,11 to buy a car perhaps he thinks he will continue to make that money same way. Regrettably, after a while the money finishes, and they are back to square one. But if they have a mentor, the mentor will let them know that they will have to plough that money back into the business so that they can expand. And when the time comes to start eating from you profit, you will know. You need to establish business properly so that your income can be flowing, steadily. Lack of mentorship and business acumen is the reason why some youths crash after making business breakthrough. So, these are what we will be bringing to the table.

As Commissioner for Energy in the state, could you tell us about some of the things you did differently that people are not aware of?

When Governor Okowa appointed me to man the affairs of the Ministry of Energy, he said ‘ I will give you a free hand to operate’. He said he wanted me to turn the Ministry around for good. On resumption of duty, I took out time to understudy the ministry so as to know how to infuse my own initiatives. And I realized that the state government had done so much. I reached out to my colleagues in the Ministry of Power and Energy in other states to know what they were actually doing. And I came to a realization that Delta State is one the states that has spent so much money on power knowing full well that the power sector is already privatized. The governor is one person that believes things should be done well, which was the reason he was pumping so much money into Benin Electricity Distribution Company, BEDC. As commissioner, I looked at all the laws on ground and noticed there were no laws. I intimated the governor on the need to put certain laws in place, and he gave me approval, directing me to meet with the state House of Assembly to see it came to fruition. So, I worked collaboratively with the state House of Assembly to put a law in place. We made a law (Delta State Energy Bill) that will enable the state government, company or any individual to generate, transmit and distribute power. Before I left office, they had already taken that Bill to the state House of Assembly for passage, and then to the governor for approval. Exactly two months ago, the Bill was signed into law by our amiable governor. Forthwith, anybody can generate, transmit and distribute power by virtue of the law as far as you have the money to do so. That is one of my achievements before I left the Ministry of Energy in Delta State. Also, in Isoko, there is lack of renewable power infrastructure even when they have power to transmit. And that led to low sharing! In view of this, we had to liaise with BEDC. The Central Bank of Nigeria CBN had some intervention fund for the discos to access in order to provide infrastructure for the people. We discussed with BEDC and we were able to attract a lot of projects to the state. And some of the projects we attracted to Delta State, was for Isoko due to their electricity shortfall. If you are driving from Ozoro at the moment, you will notice a sub-station under construction-132KVA sub-station. And if you drive around Isoko, you will see some towers already erected waiting for installation of cables. That project was first awarded by Niger Delta Development Commission, and was later abandoned before the state government took over. Also, the contractor handling the job was not doing it according to specification, so; the state government revoked the contract and re-awarded it. So, when power was privatized, BEDC was supposed to take over as that is one of the projects the CBN fund was disbursed for. And CBN was able to provide funds to run the transmission from Delta 4 in Ughelli-to-Ozoro and step it down. Once they are able to do that, Isoko will be able to experience stable power supply. Aside that, before the completion of the project, we thought of what to do to cushion the effect of darkness in Isoko land. We decided to look at the infrastructure, and tilted it along the entire Isoko and Kwale even when we knew it was the responsibility of BEDC, which we did in collaboration with BEDC. Then we started upgrading some of those infrastructure from Ughelli sub-station
, which was supplying Isoko, Patani, Kwale, Ogume and other axis within. Worthy of note, that line is the longest line in the entire Delta State. If power is transmitted from there to the communities; it will be dropping because the infrastructure will be weak. Secondly, there won’t be enough power to service them because of what we are generating in the country. So, we went back to evaluate the whole thing, and realized that the load in Abraka axis was less. Hence, instead of Isoko and Kwale to be in same place, we decided to remove Kwale and join it to Abraka as that will improve their power supply. This means that Isoko will have more power to distribute to the various communities. In addition, if you look at the entire Isoko, some communities had been cut off from the national grid . Communities such as Aviara, Okpe, Oyode, Ofagbe, and Asagba-Ese were major the hit for the past four years or thereabout. I made a case before the governor and he graciously approved a contract to that effect with the aim of upgrading facilities in the affected areas. The fact that those areas had been cut of from national grid for a longtime, most of the facilities were vandalized. And we reinstalled those vandalized facilities and connected 80 per cent of the communities and in the shortest possible time, the few communities left out will be connected. Also, I was able to facilitate street lights in most communities in Isoko to enhance security of the area. Another achievement credited to me is the low cost housing estate currently under construction in Ozoro.

As we all know, Delta State is People’s Democratic Party, PDP. However, there are other emerging parties like the All Progressives’ Congress, APC, Social Democratic Party, SDP, and Labour Party, LP, are beginning to rare their heads, as the contest is not as usual. How do you hope to defeat the opposition in Isoko considering their wave of momentum to wrestle power from PDP in Isoko Nation and the country at large?

For us in PDP, we see all these political parties as noise makers. You know, during election every political party will attempt to outperform the other, which of course is the beauty of politics. However, I can tell you categorically that they will fall to PDP as usual. PDP has ruled Delta for 24 years, and so it is going to be same as always. As a party, we have a rock solid political structure and we are taking our message to the people. And we will come out victorious at all levels of governance. All those parties you mentioned are mushroom parties with no structure or people on ground, and cannot pose a threat to us as far as election is concerned in Delta. We are fielding some of the most formidable candidates in this election; we are talking about people with track records, people with integrity and above all people that are loved by the people. And with what our amiable governor has done, PDP will win flawlessly. There is no competition because we have proved our mettle as a party, forget the APC as people are tired of them due to their poor outing at the national level. APC ruined Nigeria and compounded our socio-economic woes. Fuel is now N300, bag of rice N50,000, one dollar is 750, prices of goods and services beyond the reach of the common man and things are getting worse by the day. Nothing is working! Is APC the kind of party you want to vote so that our suffering will quadruple?

Ahead of the February and March elections, what is your message to your constituents, Deltans and Nigeria as whole?

The message is crystal clear! Any Nigerian that wants a good life must come out and vote. As it is, thuggery will not do anybody good, money will fail those who want to use money to influence votes. Nigerians are wiser now compared to then when people were lackadaisical about voting. Now, everybody wants to vote for their conscience, so; even if you give money, they will collect and still vote for their conscience. The people are concerned about the candidates and their parties; they are looking out for those candidates who have shown promise and capacity. And if you look at all the parties, you will see that only PDP fits the bill.