In this interview with Editors from THE RAZOR Newspaper, the deputy governorship candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dr Ndubuisi Nwobu fielded questions about the forthcoming Anambra governorship election. He insists Anambra is broken, that he and his candidate, Mr John Nwosu are set to take over and fix the state.
Are you not disturbed that the incumbent governor of the state, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has made zoning a statutory thing in Anambra, and your candidate may alter the zoning arrangement if he wins?
With respect to the governor, I want to say that he is not the one who is bringing zoning to bear in Anambra State. He has himself ran against zoning previously. You recall that he tried to be governor twice before he eventually made it. Those other two times, he ran against zoning, but the truth of the matter is that zoning has come to be accepted by our people. So, it has nothing to do with Soludo, nor is he the inditiator of the zoning arrangement in Anambra. That said, my candidate has said repeatedly that a Chief Executive who has four years has gotten enough time to show what it takes to assume leadership and that four years is enough. He has also said that within four years, he will be able to put in place those idea he has in his manifesto. And he has said he will leave office after four years because he knows that the people of Anambra Central are waiting to take their turn and will not be ready to shift ground. He has even taken a higher order by swearing affidavit in court, and that will be made available to Anambra people in a public debate that he will be a one term governor, so no one should have any doubt about him not keeping to his word. In fact he knows that not keeping to word may even be detrimental to his own political profile.
We have not seen members of the coalition who joined ADC joining your campaign. How acceptable is your candidate to them?
What I can tell you is that we have done our flag off, but as for the leaders of the party, you will see them in our campaign soon. Campaign is a process, we have held our flag off campaign, and we have been going around campaigning. What I can tell you is that it may not be convenient for us to take our stakeholders around for things like local government tours. For example, if we are going on campaign to Ogbaru, it may be unnecessary to take them along with us in such smaller units, considering the logistics involved, and knowing that the people you are referring to are very busy people. We are however planning our round off campaign, and you will see all those big names you’re referring to.
Okay, why is Peter Obi, a supposed member of the ADC coalition not supporting John Nwosu?
I think he is in a better position to answer that. From all indication, he (Peter Obi) is campaigning for the Labour Party candidate (George Moghalu). But ask yourself, is that one a candidate? Does he have a ticket, is that one a ticket? From the best of my knowledge, he (Moghalu) emanated from a primary election conducted by Abure and the Supreme Court has said there was no leadership, and the judgement was delivered a day before the primary election. You can’t stand something on nothing. If you don’t have a leadership, who conducted the primaries from where you emerged? I see his running around and campaigning as creating further confusion in the political field. He knows that is not a ticket, he is not a candidate. The ticket he is running about with is not a ticket.
What does your team plan to do differently from what Soludo is doing if you emerge as governor?
Let me ask you, do you feel secure in Anambra State today? You live in this state, just as I do, but can you move around freely? Insecurity is the greatest bane of government in Anambra today, and the governor failed to look into the security situation in the state for upwards of three years. When it dawned on him that we were heading towards election and he knew it was going to be a major issue, he quickly assembled a rag-tag team in the name of Udogachi.
The idea of the team is quite great, very laudable and commendable but poorly organized and nothing to write home about because it was not well thought out. Now the first Responsibility every government owes its people is security. But for three years nothing was done. For the first time, we had a governor that was unable to give the needed support to conventional security. For three years, he couldn’t even buy a bicycle for the security agencies. It’s true that these people are federal security, but the truth is that they are there to protect your own people. Every support that they needed should have been given to them, but that was not done. Not only do you need to provide them with vehicles, they needed to be provided with high tech equipment and equipping of their control room. It is after doing that you can now move into funding Udogachi. You need to profile those to be recruited, make sure they have their sureties and guarantors, give them proper training about arms handling and effective civilian/security relationship.
If there is good training, some of the bad news that we have had in Anambra would not have been heard of, and that is in respect to Udogachi and Agunechemba. Now, when you train them, you can now equip them. I say these because all of you have been in this state with me. Until we started shouting and condemning the insecurity in the state, the governor never did anything. Let me tell you, the Sienna vehicles that were given to Udogachi and Agunechemba were vehicles that were used in Nigeria, bought off their initial owners, taken to mechanic workshops, refurbished and given to security operatives. For me, giving such kind of vehicles to security operatives means you don’t even value their lives, because if you are chasing criminals and the vehicle breaks down on the way, your life will be at risk. So he needed to equip them with good vehicles, and also modern devices. They need solar powered cameras across the major cities of Anambra and ensure you have magnetic cameras across all the entry and exit points in the state, be it through sea, land and others, so that whoever is entering into Anambra, people in a fully equipped control room will be able to zoom in their cameras, see the number of the vehicle and also those in the vehicle. If you have AI enabled cameras, once someone’s face is captured, all you have to do is put that face in a data bank that is available and it will give you the data of the person. If you have vehicles that are equipped if a threat is detected, you will see that within minutes, every control station has been radiod and they are red alert and from the Central control room, you can deploy a drone that will point out the exact location where the criminals are. That is the kind of situation we need in Anambra.
Security is key. But on the other aspect, have you ever asked questions, what is the financial outlay of Anambra State? All these monies coming to the state through oil, the federation allocation, both to the local government and to the state, what happens to them? When the governor was campaigning, he said he would conduct local government elections within six months. Why did it take him two years and what happened in that two years? He conducted what can not be said to be an election. That was a sham, and it’s a shame that if you consider his height, his pedigree, his exposure, his name should not be associated with such a shame. And today, resources of the local government are taken over by the state. Did he campaign to use the resources of the Local Government to run the state? At his stage, there are things he should not be associated with. If I were one of his advisers, I will never be associated with that sham. For the first time, I heard that BOT members can now determine who is a candidate of a party – that should not be. These are the kind of things he took to the state assembly and they just stamped it without asking questions.
Let me put that aside, today when I see the governor dancing at rallies and people are calling him Oluatuegwu (one who is not afraid of work), I wonder where the work is. Some of the roads he did are already washing away within his first tenure? By the way, what happened to equity, developing the state simultaneously? But today, it is “all roads lead to Isuofia (his community)”. See the development he is giving to Ekwulobia, of course, you can not get to Isuofia without getting to Ekwulobia. Those are the things that are wrong. My governor is a professor, an academic giant, yet we have a state university that is not fenced; all the walls that are in place have collapsed, and this is a place where the leaders of tomorrow are being trained. This is a place where for eight years we have not had convocation except the last one. He is from a certain background and should protect those places he is coming from. He should have been able to do something about that. So I can only say that Anambra is broken and needs to be fixed. Me and my candidate have stepped out to fix it and we need the help of Anambra people. A lot is wrong in Anambra.
What are your chances of success in the coming election?
It is not going to be easy to unsit a sitting governor. He has all the instrumentality of government, so no one can tell us it is going to be easy. Talking about war chest, which I think means the money he is going to deploy – if the people are going to take money to be bought over, that is their problem. But whoever takes his money should know he has sold the right to ask questions, because if someone buys your votes, you have no reason to say he did not deliver, because he has paid you ahead of time. So, I believe Anambra people know that it is broken and they will in unison clamour for an alternative and we have presented ourselves as alternative. I can only say to Anambra people that we have offered ourselves, and if they elect us, we will make life easy for them. It is challenging, but I can tell you that Soludo and his team does not stand a chance.
So, I can tell you that our party stands a chance. I have been in this game and you people know. Our party ADC is an old party, devoid of hired structures, and I can confidently tell you there is no single ward in Anambra today that does not have ADC presence. That is the work I have done for the past one week plus, and based on that we have stepped out to a larger populace and I’m happy that people are buying into our projects. This morning alone, I have gotten several calls from people asking us where they can come in, what role they can play in regards to our election.
Are you afraid that there may be a collaboration between the governor and the federal government for him to retain his position?
I have no fear about that. I do not expect them to come and fight for us, I expect them to fight against us. You already know that the emergence of an ADC government in Anambra State will be a big challenge for them. But I only blame the person who instead of seeking for the support of the people is rather seeking for the support of the powers that be (FG), but is a clear failure on his side. As a matter of fact, he has alluded to the fact that his party (APGA) is going to be a goner after this election. The governor is always quick to join the APC in their sing song, and I don’t know if that is how the APC behaves, by retarding the economy. I used to think that progressivism is about positive things and not retarding the economy.
