BY CLIFFORD NDUJIHE, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

GOVERNOR Theodore Ahamefule Orji of Abia State was literarily at his best in this interview with some Journalists 20 hours after he was sworn-in for second term. In a no holds barred fashion, he speaks on why he moved against his immediate predecessor, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu; why South-East Governors backed President Goodluck Jonathan without conditions; why they accept the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) offer and his plans for Abia. Excerpts:

COULD you share your experience at the just concluded governorship election in Abia State?

It was an interesting experience. Interesting in the sense that after all the hard work I won, that I reaped from what I sowed. Elections are tough periods, you are contesting with other people, who are also tough. So you have to put in your best and that was exactly what I did.

In my own case, there were many contestants for the position of governor but I worked harder than all of them because I went to every corner of Abia State, campaigned, told them the truth not propaganda. I told them how things stand and what I would do for them with all sincerity and with that sincerity they believed in me and voted for me and our party massively. I gave them reasons, they saw with me. You know people are more enlightened now and as the days go by people become more enlightened. So when you are talking during campaign rallies they listen attentively, they listen to what you say.

And  what you say matters. You don’t go there to say, ‘this man did this or he did that. He stole money here.’ No! You tell them actually how the position of things are, you tell them whom you are and your antecedents, what you have done and what you will do for them. If they believe in you, they will vote for you and that was what we did. And that is the result that we got. Our party, the Peoples Democratic Party,  PDP swept the whole of this place. I mean 100 over 100 and we didn’t miss one seat.

House of Assembly with 24 seats, we got all of them. The three seats in the Senate, we got all of them. The eight seats in the House of Representatives, we equally got all of them.  In the presidential election, we secured 100 per cent votes, and we got the governorship seat.  So what else will you use in judging us that we are on ground, that we belonged to the people and the people belonged to us? It is  by result, that is the voice of the people. So, I am happy with the outcome  of the election because I worked hard and I succeeded.

How would you react to comments from the opposition that the elections were rigged by the PDP?
You have been in Nigeria for a long time, at least you have seen one or two elections. Is there any person who had lost election that will not give one reason why he failed? If it’s not that he is rigged out, he will talk of security and if not security, he formulates one other thing. That is what is happening here.

They will always give you reasons why they failed. But when you look at the whole thing like I told you, I worked very hard. When I was campaigning everywhere they were nowhere to be seen and when you look at the result I got 600,000 votes and the next person to me got 49,000 votes. How can you say you were rigged out?

The margin is too much. I said it before the election that I want to win the election convincingly with a wide margin so that this people will not have the appetite, that was the language I used in Aso Rock, to go to court to challenge me and I did it. But yet they are here  saying the election was rigged. When somebody has gotten 600,000 votes and above and you with 49,000 you want to go and challenge him. Even if the man says okay ‘take half of my votes,  will you win?

Shortly after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared you winner of the polls, you were not sighted again in public for some time. What was responsible for your sudden disappearance? The opposition allege you have not been on ground since then.

The opposition can say anything, that is the kind of thing we have been battling through here. I have had the worst opposition in Abia State. So they can say anything, how can I disappear? A person who has won an election that should stay, relax, rejoice and thank God, where am I disappearing to? I have been on ground but the thing is that for one week I had to travel abroad to see my people.

That was what happened. And then to use that opportunity to interact with some business people who are desirous of coming to invest in Abia State. In fact, there were some business people whom I was discussing who want to come and invest. There is man who wants to build a drink factory in Aba for us, there is another one who is building a cement factory in Arochukwu and I had to go and consult with them. With the discussions, now that I have been sworn in, they can come in immediately and start doing something.

During your second inauguration at the Township Stadium, Umuahia, some people said that they would like you to concentrate on your campaign promises instead of being distracted again by your opponents…

I am fed up with distractions and that is why they are speaking for me because they knew what I saw. For almost four years I was in court if not that God worked His wonders and touched the hearts of our people like my brother Onyema (Ugochukwu) and he withdrew. He was about going to the Supreme Court. After the tribunal, then he went to the Court of Appeal. Not only him, all of us who contested election in 2007 those that I defeated they took me to the tribunal.

So, it’s the same scenario that is coming up now and that is why Abians are saying ‘don’t distract that man’ because the last time they distracted me I was inside and outside court premises everyday instead of concentrating on governance. But now we have learnt our lessons, we wouldn’t allow such things to distract us. We are going to face governance that is the lessons we have learnt. We will do that and still face  governance because I know that this mandate is divine. God has a date for me, my date to leave this office is 2015. So that is what is in my mind now and that is what I am working towards and that is why I should not be distracted.

What should Abians expect from your administration in the next four years?
Abians are looking for completion of the projects that we did not complete in the first term. For example, the market in Umuahia and completion of the state secretariat. Projects we started which we have not completed, whether  roads or other sectors,  we will try to complete them and then build  more. Like in the health sector which we have done very well, we are going to sustain and expand it. In security, we are going to sustain it because it is key to every development. We are going to make sure that we sustain the issue of security, that kidnapping doesn’t come back here, that armed robbery doesn’t come back to Abia State.

We are going to look at Aba, the commercial nerve centre of the state. We are going to clean up the town, we are going to repair the roads because the roads are bad and not well built. We are going to build solid roads and provide markets for them instead of all these street markets. The people trading on the streets will now be moved into the markets so that you can control the environment and the people in Aba, the same thing with Umuahia.

Then you come to the rural areas, which need roads, agriculture and then to ensure that our children go to school. Fortunately for us, we have passed a bill on the scholarship board. We want to ensure that our children who are intelligent and talented are well taken care of so that they can in return impact positively on the environment. We will make sure that our children benefit from the scholarship scheme.

The State House of Assembly has passed the bill on the hand over of schools to the original owners. We intend to hand over schools to their original owners after discussing with them. There is another bill that made the Magistrate to be in charge of Customary Courts. That is another bill that will create employment and reduce the unemployment rate.

We need to touch each sector and we are giving priority to Aba and Umuhia because we want to generate money. The mechanism now to revive our IGR (Internally Generated Revenue) is yielding some dividends. Now the industries that we have, some are working some are not working. We have been able to revive some but those that have not been revived we will revive so that they work and then get more people out of the unemployment market. We also want to empower our people but more especially people have to pay taxes that are genuine, those levies that are genuine, those contributions that are genuine in order to subsidise whatever we get from the federation account.

At your inauguration ceremony, you said that you have succeeded in stopping those you described as the ‘rapacious family’ from holding Abia State in bondage. How were you able to achieve this feat?

The thing had been in existence all along and no person in leadership position had been able to do that. But in my own case, you know how this thing came about. The former governor (Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu), I was loyal to him, he will not deny that and anyday you see him ask him.

But he took my loyalty for granted and wanted to rubbish me before the world. To say he is the saint and I am the sinner. And I have to come and show the world that I am not the sinner that rather I am the saint. That is the crux of the matter because I know what my people want and I know what my people expect from me. This issue of bondage had been there and everybody had been complaining silently.

The elite showed that by abandoning the state and leaving  every person to his fate. But eventually, God has put me in this position and God knows why this position came to me.

Despite some of these things that have been happening to me, I had been very loyal, keeping quiet to maintain the peace of the state until it reached a crescendo where it became unpalatable. I was called names, some of my good friends were calling me a bishop without a cathedral because of the situation we found ourselves in. And I told them that God’s time is the best, that God will provide the time. And eventually God provided the time and gave me the will and I did that which others were afraid or unable to do and that is the peace you see today in Abia and that is the joy you saw radiating at the stadium. I told them what leadership is all about. Is it not to do those things that will make the people happy? You are there for the people not that the people are there for you. I am here for the people.

As a leader from the South-east geo-political zone are your expectations from President Goodluck Jonathan in the next four years. This question becomes pertinent because recently Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State who doubles as the chairman of the South_East Governors’s Forum announced that they did not reach any agreement with President Jonathan before supporting his presidential election. What is your position on this matter?

I concur with what the chairman of our forum in the South-East said. We never reached any agreement with the President. We didn’t tell the President this is what you have to do for us before we vote for you. We never said that because we believed in the President. We saw in him a man who first and foremost will win election. Two, a man who will do something for the South_easterner because he had already started doing something without our asking him to do it. Like the Akanu Ibian international Airport, Enugu, like the dredging of River Niger. Yes, these are things that were dear to us which other presidents had not done for us and Goodluck Jonathan has started doing them for us.

Why should we not support him? When  we had never started voting for him, he had started on his own to do those things even when he had not nursed the ambition of becoming president. When he eventually decided to run for presidency, we met corporately, all of us, and decided that none of us will vie for president and none of us will vie for vice president. Even if you have the ambition bury it, let us support him without conditions at all.

Honestly speaking, that is the best bet you can have in politics. You don’t tell somebody, ‘you must do this for me if you win, this is the condition for me to support you.