By Christy Anyanwu
Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho is an entrepreneur in the shipping sector of the maritime industry. He has deep roots in the oil and gas business, and is a major stakeholder in Integrated Oil and Gas Services company as well as Genesis Worldwide Shipping.
He has served as interior minister, among other exalted offices in the country.
Also, he ran for governor of Imo State some few years back.
Captain Iheanacho is the chairman of a socio-political movement called Imo Harmony Project (IHP).
In this interview during the week, he spoke of his earnest desire and expectations on the 2027 governorship election in Imo State and how equity and fairness demand Owerri zone to produce the next governor of the state.
Your group, IHP, is advocating for inclusiveness in the governorship of Imo State. Being that everybody is from the same tribe, same area, speaking the same language, why do you believe there should be rotation in the governance and politics of Imo State?
The transition to civil democracy happened in 1999. We have had several people who have governed Imo State. We have three zones in Imo State. We have Orlu, Owerri and Okigwe zones. Orlu Zone, for some reasons, has indeed had the lion’s share of opportunities, which exist for governing Imo State. You asked me a question just now that we are, if you like, a homogeneous people; why do we then have these divisions? These are divisions to facilitate the administration of those areas and, really, when you break down from the state level, you will see that these people are closer. Owerri people are Owerri people. Orlu people have their own characteristics and traits. Okigwe people are like that too. We believe that the opportunity to govern the state is something that really should go round. Nationwide, it’s only a few states, about three states, that have not had contingency arrangements to ensure that there is inclusiveness in terms of the personality who governs the state. The Imo Harmony Project is a very peaceful project. If you look at that name, it’s a very unique name. We are people who are looking for Imo harmony. We are not people who are looking for development or progress for any single zone in particular. We want to be able to resolve any issues that we have in a harmonious manner. That’s why we convened the Imo Harmony Project. It’s a project that has its membership made of people from every political party; we do not discriminate against anyone. You could be APC (All Progressives Congress), you could be PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) or any of these new political parties, as long as you do not come in there on a political party basis and start clapping for one person to go forward. All we want is that, given the time that has elapsed since the transition from military to civil democracy, other people also should have that opportunity to showcase what they can do, if they become the governor of the state.
Another election is coming; the perception could be that your championing the cause of IHP is for your personal interest, having tried the governorship once. What is your view on this?
You cannot speculate indefinitely. I don’t think I have done anything to give people the impression that I am here for selfish reasons. I haven’t said I’m going to contest. So, if I haven’t said it, you must give me the benefit of the doubt: If he hasn’t said anything, maybe he doesn’t want to do it.
There are some assumptions that, if there is zoning due to geopolitics, you can also zone on the basis of religion. Do you think that would arise in IHP?
It wouldn’t arise at all. People who are members of the Imo Harmony group are political leaders in their own rights, even though within the context of what we are doing in IHP we are apolitical. So, the issue of zoning in terms of religion, you have taken me unawares there. I have never even thought anybody would say it’s the turn of Catholics or it’s the turn of Protestants. There are so many other bases on which people would want zoning done.
Per adventure you decide to run as a governor or sponsor a candidate you want as the number one man in Imo, what would be your main focus?
How can I tell you something that I’m not set out to do?
Maybe you have someone in mind, like a godfather?
You can’t speculate like that. I don’t have anybody that I have chosen at this point in time.
As one of those on the top echelon of Imo State, what’s your relationship with Governor Hope Uzodimma?
I have a very cordial relationship with the governor of my state. I also, incidentally, have a very high view of how he has performed till date because he had to compare with some people. When you compare him with people who went before him, he has done very well. This is not the first time I’m saying it. I had an opportunity to look at the infrastructures, for instance, that he is developing, with respect to related infrastructure and his approach, the design, execution, the materials that he put in there, and you see someone that is absolutely serious. I once followed a project that he’s doing with regard to tidying up the road from Owerri all the way to Umuahia and he’s done a marvelous job. When you compare it with the efforts of the people who went before him, you will know that those people wasted our time. There were people who built roads and in broad daylight you watched those roads collapsing. There were people who built houses for the armed forces and those houses collapsed; there were people who built things that you could never ever contemplate if you were an engineer. You would be really sad when somebody designed a road and there were no under parts, no drainage. When the rain fell then it was like your cars were driving into the River Niger. There were so many things like that; but he has taken a different tack entirely. He got the services of expert constructors and he has absolutely continued to monitor them. I actually followed one of his projects all the way from Owerri to Umuahia because I wanted to see that he didn’t just do one part so that we could see it. He did it all the way to Umuahia and stopped at the border. Even the people on the other side are struggling to cope with the standard that he has set on this side.
Whenever I also have the opportunity to advise him, I would say to him, thank you so very much for what you have done but the next thing that we would like you to do is to develop a proper economy, a proper economy that really is dependent on developing manufacturing capacity. From manufacturing capacity, we have jobs for youths, from having jobs for youths, they will be able to have buying power. With buying power, the economy absolutely grows. That’s one thing that really needs to be done. If you go to Owerri, there’s an area that was set aside years ago as an industrial area. Successive governments would come and they pay lip service to it and they just leave it and it’s sitting there. It could be one place for him to start. If it becomes a thriving industrial area in Owerri, then he should try and get the Chinese or people who would like to invest in Imo State, bring them to assemble plants in Imo.
You said the governor is doing well, but a lot of people question his antecedent before he became governor; what was your perception of the man then?
I have known him for a very long time. We were in the PDP. I just knew him as a senior member of the party. I couldn’t predict what he was going to do if he became governor. Since he has had the opportunity to be governor, he has absolutely surprised people. What they are expecting? He’s doing things, he’s going places. For people like me to come out publicly, I’m putting my name on the line to say this is what I know of this guy and I can really attest to his commitment to development. Now, in fairness, he absolutely has said that he is for it, that equity requires that the next governor of Imo State would come from Owerri zone.
Could you tell us more about this harmony project, and is Emeka Ihedioha also part of this project?
I don’t see any reason he would not buy into the project. Emeka was the last Owerri person to be governor and he was governor for seven months. The project was truncated for reasons that everybody knows. What we are doing is, we are advocating that the next governor of Imo State will come from Owerri zone, and that includes Emeka. So I don’t see how Emeka could have another position from where we are. Would he be advocating that it goes to Orlu zone, while we are saying that they’ve spent 20 years already, or would he be advocating that it goes to Okigwe zone, where they’ve already done four years? So, the answer is apparent. He would definitely align himself and be part of what we’re doing. But I’d like to say to you that, at this point, we are reaching out to all shades of interests and opinions. We are not the only group that is convened. Some groups are convened like Osopov, Ozak. All of these groups are active and we’re constantly talking to the leadership of the groups to say, let us put our heads together, let’s create the impression that we’re all chasing after an objective, but we’re doing it in different ways. And, thankfully, all of those we have spoken to so far have been receptive. Some have indicated interest that the next meetings that we’re calling we should call them so that they will attend. So, really, we think that we’re on the right track and we’re doing the right thing.
This group is called Imo Harmony Project, but at the same time you are advocating for a particular project, that the governorship should come from one zone. We all know that governorship in any state cannot be realised by just one zone. Are people from the other zones members of this Imo Harmony group?
Yes, they are not permanent members, but what we have done is we have a policy of outreach. We’re reaching out to people. We have made overtures to all zones’ chiefs. We’ve been to meetings with them. We’ve made overtures to the leadership of the Okigwe people. We’ve had meetings with them. As we go along and identify relevant segments of Imo society that we need their support in this enterprise. We go to them peacefully, not taking up placards, no fighting, and we sit down as brothers and say, ‘Well, listen, there is no problem that we cannot solve if we put our minds to it.’ This is an issue; we want three zones, one governor. How do we have equity in terms of ensuring that everybody has a sense of belonging in respect of producing the governor?
We understand that you led delegations to Orlu sometime ago. What’s your assessment of your conversation with them? Again, these other groups are also pursuing the same cause in Imo State, how is your relationship with them? Why can’t all of you come together and pursue this one cause? Why the different groups?
Different people have different reasons and different approaches. One of the things I told you was that we are non-political. So, we have Labour Party, APC, PDP, APGA, everybody’s there. Some of these organisations are aligned politically. When we look at those, we’re not criticizing the alignment. We’re saying that when it comes to what you are seeking, if what you’re seeking is to have rotation through a man from APC, for instance, it also meets the same condition that we have set. Whether it’s APC or PDP, it doesn’t matter the alignment that you have politically. We are really like the person saying, Don’t worry about it, once you are from this zone, you have passed. You asked what our relationship is with those people. It is very cordial. Recently, we had a meeting with His Excellency, the Governor. It was at our behest that we applied to the governor to have a meeting. And we met and we had a very good meeting. At the end of the day, we just carried on the conversation. I did mention to you earlier that some of them indicated an interest in attending IHP meetings that we should invite them and we will. So, if we have functions, we will write to them officially asking them to come and be part of the events, and that’s how we expect that it will go cordially, with friendliness, brotherliness. We don’t want to have any issues to tell the world.
The fact that this movement is coming two years before the next election, and given the fact that there are three major political platforms in Imo State, how do you think political parties can subscribe to the sense and sentiments expressed by IHP if the candidates that are produced either by the governing party or others do not meet the criteria or choice of the masses?
We set our bar low. We didn’t set very high bars that people have to pass. So, if we are doing all of this campaign, and you are in APC and you are from the zone, or you have your eye on one particular person within the APC from the zone, and you bring your APC man, somehow you manage to put him in front of us, we will accept him, whether he’s APC, PDP or whatever. But, of course, if it comes to real politicking, you know what you need to do to win the election. You know that IHP is not going to win the election for you. You know that you have to go out there and canvas women, students, men, all segments of Imo society who will help. If you do that in a very clever way without telling IHP that this is what you’re doing, and suddenly your man emerges before us, you win. So, IHP cannot say, you didn’t go through us. You are not fielding the man that we wanted to field because we don’t have anybody in mind. He could be from any party.
But there is a sentiment in Imo now that what IHP is doing is a halfway house, the movement ought to set a governance agenda for whoever emerges. To set a governance agenda for whoever will come forward so as not to repeat the experience of Anambra State, where they zoned to the North, and ‘wasted’ eight years.
That’s the responsibility and job that we leave for the core politicians. We’re not going to pretend that we’re in a position to deal with it or alter our focus, we’re not going to do that. If anybody within IHP has an ambition, and we have actually seen ourselves. People who have ambitions to become governor from IHP, we tell them, when the time comes, you have to break out and go and set up a structure and then bring the resources, do your campaign and If you are accepted, you’ve won.
While you were talking about IHP, you kept mentioning ‘man’, what about ‘ woman’, what if a woman comes up?
It would be very nice for a woman to come up. I could give you a name. I don’t know if I should say it, but I know one woman who is very active, and I just wonder. She’s active not in zonal politics. She’s active in the politics of her hometown. You know, that’s where she’s doing all her politicking, and sometimes I think that if she were to come to the zone and bring all this zeal that she learnt in Yorubaland here, then she might have a very good chance of becoming governor. We have nothing against women. We want them to rise and become governors as well.
Without sentiments, what is the way forward for Imo politics?
I’ve addressed the issue in comments that I made earlier on. I was talking to you about the quality of the infrastructure that the government has committed themselves to. And I said, flowing from that, we are hoping that you move forward and develop a proper economy. What I mean by developing a proper economy is, if you know what has happened since 1999 to all the governments in all the states, if you win the election to become the governor, you have become rich beyond your wildest dreams. Because the money that is given to the state from the centre belongs to you. That’s the way it is. Officially, that is not the case. But in reality governments do whatever they like and we haven’t seen anybody who’s been interdicted or prosecuted for spending money the way they liked. What I then said was that it would be nice for the government to move from a situation where it’s building infrastructure, building all those infrastructure or monies that are given from the centre to one where we develop an economy. Developing an economy means developing productive capacity and from production you have jobs. From jobs, youths have money to spend. Then we produce things that we can sell. We can sell it to our neighbouring states and can go out of the Nigerian state itself and sell it to the neighbouring countries in West Africa. You know what I want to see them achieve? When I ran to become a governor in 2015, I went to a place, in Obowu, in Imo State. They call it the Malaysia Market, and I went there because I wanted to know what was going on in that Malaysia Market, and what I saw was so extraordinary. A huge, huge set of markets and they sold predominantly goods that are manufactured in Malaysia. The consequence is that the job content and the wages that are earned by the workers have been left behind in Malaysia. And what we bring is the consumption stuff that we consume ourselves. So I would like to see a governor who will set up a proper economy, that will invest in manufacturing, understand the role of the private sector, attract the private sector and the governor himself will understand that his role is to give support by giving land, doing gutters, communications and all those things. So if we had all of those things, and we started manufacturing, we would become that Malaysia that I saw in Nobu. I want us to be like that.
As an international figure, what’s the Nigeria of your dreams? What is it that you expect of Nigeria by now?
Well, we are in flux. We are continuously changing and our hope and aspiration is that we move away from depending on foreign manufactured goods to producing our goods locally. The same thing that I said about the States. I see it as a role for the federal government. But the way that it would happen with the federal government is that we start from oil. We’ve had oil since the late 1950s. But what do we do with the oil? A third party, not Nigerian elements, produces the oil and then they give us a share of the oil, then we take that share of the oil and send it back to the person who produced it. And then they take it on a ship that does not belong to Nigerians. They take it to a refinery that does not belong to Nigerians. They bring it back on a ship that does not belong to Nigerians. They send it back to us. So the Nigeria of my dream would be one where OPEC says we can produce 2.4 million barrels of oil a day. We go there to produce 3 million, 4 million barrels a day. Once we produce the oil, we set up refineries in Nigeria to refine a large proportion of that oil. And then we become a centre for refined product exports that we can export to neighbouring countries by people who are not as endowed as ourselves. That is the way that we are going to become a great nation. I don’t like to give a term that we describe in Nigeria. We don’t describe Nigeria as a great nation. We say that’s the most populous country in Africa. Population, of course, there are lots of us. It’s a country that has a lot of oil. But what are we doing with the oil? We need to be able to turn that back into programmes that will create a better life for our people.
What are the roles of the youth in this project?
They have roles. The youths are there, but we have to develop a programme for catering for the youths. The youths are the ones who are going to be electricians, shop floor electricians, people who work in factories, people who manufacture all those things that are to be sold. It is the youth. But you have to start off by defining what it is you want to manufacture. You have to then look at how many people you will be able to employ, and what specific skills you want and it feeds into the education sector. You say, ah, we need 1,000 electricians working in so many factories. Then you go to your education people and say, this is what we need, this is the curriculum, and that’s what development is all about.