By OCHEREOME NNANNA

Governor  Peter Obi of Anambra State provides some insight into the deal President Goodluck Jonathan had with governors of the South-East geo-political zone ahead of the April polls vis-a-vis the raging controversy over zoning. Obi also speaks, in this interview, on issues relating to the polls, his administration and the Anambra polity.

The Ikemba, Chief Odumegwu-Ojukwu, is a formidable force in Anambra politics. He was around during your re-election, when he asked Igbo to vote for you as his “last wish”. Unfortunately he was not around during the last election. To what extent would you say his absence affected the outcome?

Well, he was around in 2003 when we won our victory. He was around in 2007 when we won everything and were denied everything. He was around in 2010 when we won the re-election. This time round, he was unavoidably absent because he was not well. If he was around, he wouldn’t have changed the result of the election. Whether he is there or not, people know he is with us. They see him in me.

Taking your performance into account in the last election, how do you see the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in the next four years, especially in the South-East?

Our party is entrenched with the people of Anambra State. Look at all the big names. How many of them are with APGA? All these big names are on one side. For us to win them in the 2010 election and this recent one where we took the number we did, this will tell you that we are more formidable than most people think. Remember we were operating with zero number of members of the House of Assembly, zero number of members of our party in the House of Representatives, zero in the Senate. To have come from there to here where all the heavyweights could not stop us, then you can conclude that this party’s growth is on the upswing.

*Gov Peter Obi

People have this impression that you have not done much to contribute to the growth of APGA in the South-East all these years, unlike Bola Tinubu, who has now recovered the South-West from  PDP and is forging ahead in other parts of the country with his Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). You did not seem to have done much in terms of financing your party outside Anambra State.

I won’t say much about my contributions to the growth of the party financially. If you measure the income of Anambra State and compare it with the income of other states, then you will be amazed at how much we have been able to do in developing the state, and why we may not be as free with political funding as others. In Nigeria, we don’t compare like with like. You don’t compare New York Times with a newspaper in a small state like Arkansas, which has a budget about a 10th the size of the budget of New York. People like to compare one state with another without looking at the relative monthly incomes each of them has to “play” with. If you compare what some of the big-budget states have done with their income and what we have done with the little we get, you will agree with me that we have done far better than some of them. You have to look at other factors attached. Some of these governors were in office for eight unbroken years without being impeached. Our mandate was stolen. When we eventually recovered it we were impeached. We have suffered an uncommonly hostile political environment here, but I’m glad we are now on the move. Even Ikemba faced a similar problem. He was never able to win elections, even in Nnewi, his local government area. In 2003, we lost; in 2007, we lost. During the re-election, last year, we lost. But, during the 2011 general elections, we won in Nnewi.

For you to know how strong you are in the state as a party, there are key areas you have to win. Awka North and South Federal Constituency we won, Onitsha North and South Federal Constituency we won; Nnewi North and South Federal Constituency, we won. These are the key areas of the state. We’ve done very well as a party, and someone was responsible for the effort, together with the rest of the party’s leadership.

I want to take you away from elections stuff. In the build-up to the elections, APGA came out and endorsed the PDP presidential candidate, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. You said the endorsement was based on an agreement with the president. PDP has decided to give the Speaker, House of Representatives to the South-West against the wishes of the South-East.  The question is, what was the deal?

We made that endorsement based on a deal we had with President Jonathan. The South-East agreed unanimously not to contest the post of the presidency and the vice-presidency. We agreed to support a candidate who best accommodates the interests of the South-East.

When we looked into the programmes of all the candidates, their promises, what they said they would do, we were persuaded by the prospects of Jonathan. So, we called on our people to support him, and our people came out in large numbers to support him during the presidential election with five million votes from the South-East alone. The question you asked is, what deal did we agree with the President.

I have to differentiate between the deal we, as governors and leaders of the South- East had with him and the internal PDP arrangement on zoning of political offices. When we were talking with Jonathan, we were not talking about the PDP zoning formula for sharing political offices. What we concerned ourselves with was what was there for the people of the South-East; what was there for the people of the country at large.

Throughout his campaign, he stressed he would make sure that the Enugu Airport is converted to an international airport because the people deserve it. He said: ‘I will build the Second Niger Bridge, I will help tackle erosion, which is a big problem in the zone, I will increase power generation and extend it equitably to the South-East because your people are entrepreneurs’.

These are programmes that will impact directly on the people of the zone, and the country at large. And he is already doing some of these things, just as agreed. You should be asking PDP leaders from this zone what they have gotten for their people. I didn’t go there looking for what individuals will benefit. I was thinking of what will benefit my people. Any road you pass through in Anambra that is not good today is a federal road. These are things he promised he’d do.

These are things I’ll want him to do for our people. It is our brothers and sisters who are members and leaders of PDP that will have to bother about office sharing.

We went round the state and saw your efforts constructing roads, bridges and putting up buildings in many public institutions. What are you doing about job creation?

What you saw in your round trip was part of job creation. It is people that built the infrastructure, and it is people that will be employed to man them or provide services. The bridges and roads we are constructing are aimed at opening up access to difficult areas to have access to markets for whatever they are producing. And, once we are able to create an enabling environment, there will be an influx of investors here and that will also create jobs. For instance, one of the largest brewing companies in the world, which produces Castle Beer, will soon take off, and that will boost job creation.

Some people are blaming you for the failure of Professor Dora Akunyili to win the contest for the Senate on APGA’s platform. How do you react?

Whatever you do, people will always look for somebody to blame when they don’t get what they want. When we went to South Africa for the World Cup championship and lost, people were heard blaming the Federal Government. Instead of blaming the players, you blame the government. If the players had done what they were expected to do, they will be praised but when they failed government is blamed.

Will you support that she should be nominated again as minister since your party is working with the ruling PDP?
I am not interested in what individuals get out of our working agreement with the Federal Government under President Goodluck Jonathan. I am only interested in what comes to the Igbo. My interest is not in all these posts, or who gets what. My interest is in getting the Federal Government budget to reflect equally in every zone, especially here that has been denied for a long time.  If they can do what is right here, mending the federal roads  that have turned into death traps – Enugu Port Harcourt Express, Enugu – Onitsha Express, Enugu – Abakaliki Express, all the roads here that belongs to the Federal Government, fix the Second Niger Bridge, the Enugu International Airport, come into so many other areas where we’ve been deprived for years, that is my concern, not who is posted where.

When we went round the various project sites, we found, often, that many of the facilities were overgrown by weeds, which somehow defaced these beautiful edifices…

I agree with you. If you know where we are coming from in this state, you will see even the weeds as a measure of progress. Most of these institutions either did not exist or were totally abandoned. We are in the process of rehabilitating and reactivating them. We will get to the beautification stage, and I believe we can do it during the time I have left.

If you knew what used to be at the two Business Parks in Onitsha, you will  marvel at what we have been able to convert them into today. I am sure you visited these facilities. Both of them used to be refuse dumpsites. We are gradually restoring a hopeless situation with the little resources we have. And, the great thing about it is that Anambra State is one of the least-indebted states in the federation. We have not borrowed any kobo since we came in. Everybody is issuing bonds. We have not. And we have been able to achieve what some states that have issued billions worth of bonds have not achieved.

Since you took over, there seems to be a reorientation of values in terms of godfatherism. There were days when the likes of Chief Arthur Eze, Chief Emeka Offor and Chief Chris Uba were reigning as “godfathers” over the state governors. That seems to be a thing of the past. What has been your strategy?

One of the key things we are doing here is that we are challenging people’s priorities. By personal example, we are changing the values. If you want to change any system, you will become the enemy of those who used to bask in the system. People who used to command the old order have been put out of business by us.

The second goal of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to achieve universal primary education. Our primary and secondary schools have now been upgraded and functioning much better than before. When we came here, we found that none of our schools had adequate number of classrooms. Some of them had their roofs blown off. None of them had boreholes or libraries.

As we speak, we have been able to provide boreholes in about 130 schools, and our computerisation programme is proceeding with full pace. We are providing the schools with libraries. We have been able to return the schools to the missionaries and communities that established them and we are giving them the required support to run them. If you go round, you will see the results. Before we came in, none of our civil servants received any form of training.

Today, we train our people overseas and we invite specialists to come and train them here. We are working with the European Union and the World Bank and other donor- agencies on training. We have been able to repair the first library here in the state built in 1966 by the military regime of Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu- Ojukwu. The library complex had been turned into a motor park. I was the one who chased everybody away and put it the way it is today. I was in Elementary Two in 1966 when Ojukwu came to commission the library. We came here to welcome him and to witness the event.

Don’t you think the Anambra Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS) adopted by your administration is spreading resources too thin by “developing all sectors simultaneously”? Two,  don’t you think it is time to clean the gateway to the South-East, repairing and beautifying the road from the Bridgehead in Onitsha to Awka?

I don’t have the documents right here, I would have shown you the proposal I have put across to the president to authorise me to do exactly what you have described. It is critical to me. The contract from the Bridgehead to Awka has been awarded to CCC. It is an ongoing contract but it has not been started. My proposal is to be allowed to fund it from our resources, since it may not be feasible to wait for the Federal Government which might not attach the same level of priority to it as we do. If I get the authorisation tomorrow, you will see what we can do. I am not saying that I am having problems getting the authorisation. I have applied and I am waiting for the go-ahead, and I am optimistic it will come as soon as the president settles down.

As for ANIDS, our vision is to achieve the MDGs. ANIDS is the vehicle for getting there. We do not believe that development should be one-sided. We are pursuing every goal of the MDGs  and we are doing well in all sectors. That is what development is all about. People are seeing what we are doing. The small people are seeing them. If we go into villages, you will not believe the excitement people exhibit when they see us. I was on a TV programme this morning, and everybody that called in said, ‘thank you for the good job you are doing’.

It is no longer possible for you to be a “Red Cap Chief” without a daytime means of livelihood. No. We want to know what everybody is doing for a living. It is no longer the time when people travelled to the airport with the governor without having any job to do at the airport. It is no longer the time of the Irrevocable Standard Payment Order (ISPO) to contractors  who use it as a means of milking the treasury of the state from source every month. And, because you are no longer having access to free public money, you decide to constitute yourself into a nuisance. For people who have been severed from the public treasury, the governor is not doing well. Because now, when the governor is travelling overseas, he no longer travels with more than 30 people, he is not doing well. Because you no longer go to stay in Abuja hotels, wearing red cap and having your personal costs defrayed by the governor with public funds, he is not doing well.

If you want government to spend that money, my usual question is, what value is your trip adding to the welfare of the people of the state? What value will you add by travelling with me? We would rather use the money to provide boreholes, laboratories, libraries and other facilities for our schools. This is where the money is going now.

With about two years and nine months to go, and this re-orientation you have introduced, are you grooming a successor to carry on with the new way of running public office?

You are taking us back to godfatherism (general laughter). I believe that will be for the people. I am trying to lay a foundation for effective governance and deployment of resources to where it matters for the people; a foundation that will outlive us all. Change agents are often consumed in the process. During the campaigns, I promised the electorate good governance. People sometimes come to me and ask, ‘where is the good governance you promised? I tell them to go to their villages and see the new classroom block, see the new facelift on the hospital there, see the new bridges and roads I have provided. Then, they will tell you,  is it only road to the village  that we will eat?’ That is the big man talking. But the people are happy with roads, and that is what excites me.

There is a clamour, especially by the state governments, for a re-jig of the federal revenue sharing formula. What is your take on it?

All of us are interested in the re-jig because if you put together the overheads of what the states spend, it is far more than what the Federal Government spends on its own overheads. It is time for us to sit down and plan as a nation, create a roadmap for development and let the states and local governments key into it. Nigeria is a signatory to the MDG universal agenda. We should see it as a vision. We should not just sign these international protocols and come back here to sleep.

We should be able to say, the local government will take the boreholes in water development. The state governments will provide water to bigger towns while the Federal Government will take up the regional mega-projects, and so on. Let the local councils cater for health by taking up the primary healthcare. The state should take up the general hospitals, while the tertiary healthcare will be done by the Federal Government. Right now, we are working parallel and at cross purposes.

There seems to be  quite a high number of people resigning from your government. What is wrong?

Let me tell you, I have the most stable government in the country today, quote me anywhere. I came with most of the commissioners that are working with me since 2006. I don’t know how many governors have kept their commissioners for five, six years, rolling them over into a new term in office. Out of  20 executive council members, only three have left. Governors have dissolved their executive councils many times over, sacked their political appointees. I believe if you keep on changing people just for the sake of changing them, you create instability and a climate of fear and corruption. My friend, Chuks Iloegbunam, came here as my Chief of Staff. When I did not need a Chief of Staff office anymore, I told him frankly why the office was not necessary. That is more of an administrative work. The permanent secretary in the Government House was more useful to me as an administrator because he knew more about administration, which Chuks and I don’t know about. He was the one guiding me, ‘do this, don’t do this’.

The same thing happened when I became the chairman of a bank. I was just a businessman who became chairman. I did not know banking, so I had to bring someone who was a banker to guide me when I needed to take certain decisions. I have an administrative staff who has retired, but I am keeping her because she knows how government functions. I have a director of budget today that had retired but I am keeping her because she is the one who guides me through the budgeting process. So, when I decided not to have Chief of Staff, I appointed Chuks as Special Adviser in Communication. And a number of people were moved around like that. We worked together for years with this arrangement. When people decided to leave some people think the heavens have fallen. No, it is not like that.