From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
The candidate of Labour Party for Delta North senatorial district, Mr. Kennedy Onochie Kanma, a lawyer and real estate developer, has insisted that his party remained the only platform to redeem Nigeria from its present predicament. In this interview, Kanma unveiled his plans for Delta North (Anioma nation), adding that he is the only candidate in the race without any baggage.
You are relatively unknown in the political terrain, can you tell us about your political antecedents?
In terms of national politics, I have not be involved for elective politics. For instance, presently, I am the Legal Adviser to the Real Estate Development Association. And in that capacity, we have even proposed a bill to the National Assembly that is being handled there. So, my involvement in politics has been on the fringes not in the main space but I am very conscious and conversant with the situation in the country; the challenges we face and I have always been thinking of the solutions to ensure that Nigeria is a better country.
Now what is the motivating factor for venturing into active politics?
I must tell you that it was apparent to every person who watches Nigeria that the country was on the downward slide. Look everywhere, it looks as if we are hopeful but that hope almost gets dashed because every year seems to be worse than the previous year, and things keep going down. Anyone following the politics keep wondering if there is hope for Nigeria. Then all of a sudden, Peter Obi left where he was and came to our party. In fact, when he started speaking about his views and vision for the country, they aligned with my own views and what I want to happen in the country. I want to be proud of my country. I feel very sad when I go to other countries. I hardly spend a long time in foreign countries because I feel bad. You enter into a place and see things and say we could have done this for ourselves in Nigeria. And you find that there is nothing difficult about what has been done there but it is not being done here, so you feel ashamed. However, when those who have the capacity to do something about the situation comes back to Nigeria, they forget what they had seen and begin to conduct themselves in a manner that perpetuate that cycle of keeping Nigeria down. So when Peter Obi started talking, you see that the problems are solvable. When I started seeing that there is a possibility in this country for credible people to come out, contest and it will be possible for them to win, when I started seeing that it is possible for Peter Obi to become the president, I knew that this is an opportunity we have that we cannot play with; it is an opportunity that every right thinking person can key into in one way or the other. So I stepped forward, I went to my place and started discussing with my people, and after we rubbed minds, I was put forward to contest the senatorial seat.
Were you a member of LP before Peter Obi came in?
Yes, I have been a member of LP for long but I was dormant and did not really activate my interest in partisan politics. I started being active when he moved into our party, as soon as he moved in, my antennas woke up.
What gives you that confidence that elections in 2023 will count?
Two things give me that confidence. One, Nigerians are more politically aware, people are more conscious. The young people are not as willing to be used as tools to snatch ballot boxes as before. But the major thing is the passage of the amended Electoral Act. When that act was passed, I realised that it is now illegal to do it the way it was being done before because most of the bad practices of our electoral processes were checkmated by the law. Then two, is the introduction of BVAS which made it seem practically impossible to blatantly rob somebody of their electoral victory. I feel that if you are defeated fair and square, you go back home and rest, but if you win, it will be robbery for someone to just in broad day light, take it because they have access to manipulating the process.
What are plans for Anioma nation if elected?
My plans for Delta North are quite a lot but I will focus on the ones that are most pressing. One, I believe that both the people of Delta North and entire Nigerians want a secured country, we want a country where there is peace and harmony, where you want to travel and you don’t think too much about it. At some point in time, you could travel to any part of this country just for leisure. Now, nobody travels anywhere because the risk is too much. People can no longer go to their farms because the risk is too much. In fact, there is so much risk for being alive in Nigeria because of insecurity. You are either running from clashes between farmers and herders, insurgency, kidnapping, or whatever. There is just too much insecurity in the country. That for me is a primary focus. I believe that whatever it is that National Assembly needs to do to ensure that there is peace and harmony, I will support any policy that gives an indication that we are pursuing peace because without peace and harmony, every other thing is meaningless. If you are rich without life, it is meaningless, if you are poor without life, it is meaningless, everything boils down to preserving our territorial integrity; let there be peace and harmony in the country. Secondly, there is so much poverty in the land. When they tell us that there are more than 100 million Nigerians living below the poverty line, to some people it is theory but when you interact with people in the neighbourhood, you realise that no matter the amount you have, it can never be enough. Once an individual is responsible for the sustenance of other individuals, both the one sustaining and the one being sustained can never be satisfied. So what we are looking out for is a Nigeria that is prosperous so that people would be able to fend for themselves and feed. As we sit here, there are people in less than one kilometer away who have not eaten since yesterday and there is no hope in sight. Everyday is a drag, we should get tired of that type of country. And what makes it more painful is that Nigerians are hard working with determination for success but the system keeps creating obstacles because nobody is actually paying attention. So as captured in the language of our presidential candidate, we want to move Nigeria from consumption to production. I entered in to become a senator because I want Peter Obi to count on one vote from Anioma at the National Assembly when he becomes president. I don’t want that chance lost because those in the other parties don’t have that kind of ideology; chances are that they would frustrate moves to make Nigeria great because the things Peter Obi is planning to do will close the tap many people have plugged into the country to drain it. I also believe that our educational system needs to be overhauled; we need to think of how our children can compete and surpass children in the world because the world has become a global village. Our system is archaic, our educational system needs revamping.
Your opponents – Peter Nwaoboshi of APC and Ned Nwoko of PDP are both entrenched politicians with connections at various levels in government. What makes you think you stand a chance against them?
To be frank, you cannot under rate the strengths of either candidate; Nwaoboshi has federal might and support and Ned Nwoko has the state support, and both of them have been involved in politics. But the truth is that both of them are that obstacle that has kept our country down, and Nigerians have become wiser. So they no longer look that because you have been there since Jerusalem started, no! In fact, people who would vote for them are people who do not understand how they have caused their problems in this life. If a person understands that most of his problems in this life were caused by the people who had represented them in the past, I won’t have been bothering my head about it but I know there are quite a number of people not fully cognisant of the situations caused by poor representation. So what I am doing is appealing to the people to think very well. Don’t cast your vote because you believe the guy is rich, the guy is rich for himself and not for you; he does not have your interest in his heart. In fact, your freedom impacts upon his wealth because once you are free mentally to know that plenty of the things that created the wealth you think he has are things ought to have been used for your own good; you won’t be counting the fact that he is very wealthy as being an advantage for him; it is actually a disadvantage for him because he took it from you.
How would you use your office as a senator to ensure affordable housing for your people as an estate developer, if elected?
Some of these housing challenges are caused by our land tenure laws, the Land Use Act, but that is not the major factor for the non-viability of mass housing. Some of the major things that cause people not to be able to afford houses are one, where most people want houses, the titles are not marketable. For instance, somebody in Lagos with the capacity to build a house, goes to his village or he has managed to build in the village; that house in the village will have zero value, he cannot use it for anything except to live in it. If we are able to adjust our land laws to ensure that no matter where you build your house, it has a title that you can use to do something. We have to be practical as Nigerians, we want first and foremost to build in our towns before building elsewhere. If you fall into that category and you build in your town and leverage on that to build in the city, you see that one, you will be able to get house easily. Then secondly, there is what we call social housing, and when you want to do social housing, you must think about the relationship between the income of the people to use it and the mortgage law you are passing. Our mortgage laws in Nigeria presently are at disparity with people’s income. For instance, we tried to build for civil servants in Delta, courtesy of the state government, that was the first time I was exposed to the income of the civil servants. Most people, based on their salary, cannot pay a mortgage of N30,000, N50,000 per month. If the government realises that this is the income of our average staff and this is the cost of house, through social housing policies, they will be able to make laws that ensure that people can at least pay a particular amount of money are able to afford to pay their mortgages. Everybody wants to own a house, what stops them is when it gets to that time to pay the mortgages; you realise that the mortgages will eat up the entire salary. So the person withdraws back. I look at these facts, and there are several other things that can be done. Once we enter into the system, we will work out the details of social housing in ways because I have been involved in some of them that have been implemented. I have been involved in the one done at the federal and state levels. I worked with the Federal Government Staff Housing Loan Board and I provided houses for quite a number of federal civil servants. However, when I evaluated it, I saw that the only people who could afford it were those from level 15, 16, directors and permanent secretaries. The others come and apply, then go back, and you kept wondering why is it so, it was when I started relating salaries to cost, I realised that something has to be done about it. If you don’t do it, most people will suffer. And the country is getting to a place where we have to start thinking of the top, middle and the below.
During your flag off, you lamented about the Ogwashi-Uku Dam, so what will you do differently to get it working?
That matter is something I find, I will not say annoying but I will say in a sorry state because they have built the dam; the dam is there and it is serving no purpose. And I ask why is it not serving any purpose? You realise that our people sometimes just pass bulk for no reason. And they said at the federal level, they have given it to the state to complete, that is the way I interpreted it despite all the grammar. No! You built something to achieve a purpose, the state government did not build it, the Federal Government built it. You said the state government should complete it, is that the way they are doing dams for other people? This is not the only dam in the country, did the state government go and complete the ones in their states? It is our people that should push the Federal Government to complete it because it is not in the state budget. It is in the federal budget. One of the first things we will do is to dust up all the papers, there are several components that have not been put in place which they are claiming the state will do. We will tell the Federal Government that before you start going to embark on another white elephant project, complete this one for us because it is a very good project. As expected, the budget will be much smaller since all we are asking for is for them to put in the hydro component, the water circulation component and the part for irrigation. I can assure you that if it gets back into the budget when I am senator, it will be done, hold me to that.
Many people are saying that LP has no structure to win election. What is your take on it?
People sometimes misconstrue what constitutes a structure because they are looking at where they have offices; there is no place but even remote villages that Labour Party does not have membership. The message of Labour Party resonates with everybody. I have gone round, there is no place where we don’t have membership, and for us in Labour Party, we believe that our members are our structure. So if you go there, you don’t see a building, once our members are there, we have a structure there. We have membership in every part of Delta North senatorial district.
Some persons feel that in 2023, individual candidates, not political parties, will determine who gets the votes. For you as an individual, remove Labour Party, remove Peter Obi, what is your selling point?
When you talk about my selling point, I think that one, when you look at a person’s past in the things that I have done, I have made a success of them. And in terms of understanding, in terms of capacity, in terms of competence of the people who are available on the ballot, I think that I am far better than each and everyone of them. I don’t carry the baggage that they carry.
How would you rate the performance of the Okowa-led administration in the state?
In some things, he has tried even as a PDP governor. Where he has tried, I will say he has tried, in places where he has not tried, I will also say it. One of the things he did to some extent is roads. I will give him credit for that. But he has not tried in the volume of debt he has left for the state. When you borrow so much money, you impoverish future generations. In fact, they were describing it that if we were to apportion the loans he has taken and give each Deltan a portion of the loans, some people will not finish repaying their own for the remaining part of their lives. So why would you carry the burden of that type of loan and keep on the people? And when you compare the quantity of loan he has taken, and you look for the evidence of it on the ground, you can’t find it. Delta State gets a very huge amount of revenue from federal allocation. When you look at the monthly allocation and look at what is on ground, and you look at the loans that have been taken on top of it, you start asking what did they use all these humongous amount of money to do? Even if I say they have done road because I see some roads, then I ask myself how much are those roads? I do housing estates, I know what road costs. But he built roads, I give it to him but the quantity of money wasted in the state is just too much.
What is your message to Anioma and Nigerians at large
For Anioma people, this is an opportunity to come out of darkness into light. When we talk about that, I remember one of my pet projects again, that we produce light in Amai, send to the whole country, and the whole of Ndokwa nation, in fact the whole of Delta North is almost in darkness. Meanwhile, we provide the light for other parts of the country. It is a pet project which we are going to address. For Anioma people, it is our opportunity to come out from literal darkness to light. When you vote for Ken Kanma, you are coming out from darkness and going into light. When you vote for Peter Obi, you have decided to carry the light and bring it down to Delta North. So, a vote for Peter Obi is a vote for light, a vote for progress, a vote for prosperity of the nation, and a vote for Ken Kanma for Delta North senatorial district is a vote to see that things work in Anioma nation.