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Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Bayelsa State governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ndutimi Alaibe, has dismissed speculations of a rift between him and Governor Seriake Dickson. In this interview ahead of the primaries of the PDP in the state, he said Dickson is the governor of Bayelsa and deserves respect.
Since 2003, you have been angling to be governor, why are you running again this time?
I have answered this question severally and it is becoming a broken record. But I will keep saying it. I am a full-blooded Bayelsan. My mother and father are Bayelsa people. Sometimes, some people allude to Lagos but I am only in Lagos for occupational reasons. I did my school here so I understand the challenges, economic challenges, infrastructural challenges, socio-political challenges and environmental challenges of this land perfectly. I even did research during the time of the Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan; we were involved in the diagnosis reviews. So, I know most of the challenges, even the thematic areas and the detailed areas I know them. Over time, I wanted to be governor so that I can address those things because I believe I have the capacity and experience to do that having run an organisation that had 145 local government areas; so, running a state with eight local government areas are one of the things we talked about in the master plan. I have been itching to this because I know my state. If those gaps have been fundamentally done, I would not be itching for this. The point is that I have the experience, both private and public sector, to bring to bear to ensure that project implementation is seamless and efficient. I can provide that service.
Every past government has dwelt on the economy during the campaigns but fail to make the desired impact because of the appointment of people to manage the economy based on political patronage and not competence. How are you going to do things differently?
It requires capacity and political will and leadership. When you want to talk about implementation, you have to have appropriate knowledge and experience and implementation capacity to do it. I keep flogging this point that private sector experience is key in terms of implementing economic activities. The discipline in the private sector needs to be brought into governance. If private sector practitioners come to talk to you and you don’t speak their language as a leader in government and you are not able to speak their language, forget it. If you don’t have appropriate discipline and experience on the table, then foreclose their participation. If your projects are not bankable and no plans for repayment, forget their involvement. So to attract such capital and to even implement those things, need special skills and that those are what I am bringing to the table.
What is your take on youth inclusion in governance?
Let me say this, our youths are our future. If we do not involve the youths in what we are doing today, we are in trouble. So, we must be able to involve them in governance and tutor them. Skills are not acquired overnight; we have to tutor to ensure that they go through the rudiment of training to be able to also become leaders. At their strategic levels, some of them are leaders for example those in Ijaw Youth Council and community youth organisations. But then, government is also important. And be prepared for tomorrow. However, what I abhor is that a man is through from the University and his first job is that he wants to be House of Assembly member; that is not sustainable. We have to train them. We have a lot of programmes for the youth. My first six months in office would be dedicated to the youths. And we categorised them. There are youths generally unskilled like my friends on the streets who say they are the owners of the streets; those friends, I would attend to them. But I would withdraw their arms; I would demobilise them, rehabilitate them and reintegrate them to the society so that they can have jobs. The next set of people are those who are prepared already, having gone to the University and yet they do not have jobs. There are a lot of our youths that are unemployed; we need to deal with that. We would prepare them for special skills so that we can ensure that our tomorrow would be a skilled society that can be exported. I keep giving the examples of Philippines that in 2018, over $6billion were repatriated back to the Philippines for sea-farers. 45% of Sea-farers in the world are Pilipino; so you can imagine that it was not an error that some leaders sat down to invest in their people. We are also going to invest in our youths. We are going to put money in that aspect by securing our state. Our strategy is not to bring police and put everywhere. Bayelsa wants to be another Philippines; we want to export labour both in ICT and in marine. This environment is a marine environment, it is a blue environment. What advantages are we taking from the blue environment? There is a Bayelsan who is in the same industry with me and he has trained a few people like that. I met them in Dubai in a ship I was bringing in. Five Bayelsa boys are there and they are from one community in Bayelsa. I was so proud when I met them; those boys are being paid in US dollars. The point is that we need to have a deliberate policy that can train these boys. It is not just about inclusion in government because everybody wants to be in government. The only business is government; it cannot be so.
Bayelsans have high expectations of your leadership as a financial manager; how would you attend to the high debt profile of the state?
Thank God Bayelsa is going to have me as governor by the grace of God. This is my turf. We are going to rework the debt. After all, Nigeria also has a lot of debt, so we are going to rework the debt. We are to review the debts, restructure them so as to free up resources for the benefit of our state. So, don’t be afraid; it is not high debt profile that would make us not to achieve our development initiatives.
Have the issues over the ward delegates elections been resolved and what is your relationship with Governor Dickson since we have heard allegations and counter allegations?
I would not want to comment of the delegate election because we are now at the level of the primaries. We would face the primaries and we are going full blast and by the grace of God we are going to win.
There is nothing wrong in my relationship with Governor Seriake Dickson. We do not have any fundamental issues. It is political time and people would be suspecting different things. He is the governor of our state and we give him that respect, he is also a leader that we all adore and we would continue to give him that respect. We don’t have any problem.
Are you going to keep to your campaign promises?
You need to know where I am coming from. I am not a politician per se. I am a private man in politics. So given that background, a private sector man says it how it is and politicians don’t appreciate some of us because we say the truth. We have said certain things and we would make sure we keep to our promises.
What will be the place of women in your government?
I am a gender-sensitive person and as you know, I used to be married to a woman who has an NGO, called Family Re-orientation Education and Empowerment. She was very passionate about the girl-child and women. I learnt quite a lot from her. Women education was key and women empowerment was also key. Some of our mothers do not understand what the naira was until her adult literacy school came. These sessions empowered most of women and also introduced women cooperatives for farming and processing of farm products. There was also teaching of skills like baking of cakes, making of hair etc. I learnt quite a lot from my wife and that has given us the framework to design activities we have for our women. Some of them are empowerment programmes to give our women the necessary comfort to build themselves as entrepreneurs.
There are 21 aspirants gunning for the PDP governorship ticket; so what is the significant thing about you that makes you different from the pack? And what are you expectations from delegates?
I have been talking to the delegates and I want to say as you go to elect your leader, try as much as possible to seek the face of God in doing that because it is going to be another four years. These four years are going to be critical to our state, communities and our people. And how the next government impacts in your lives is critical? And I believe that I have that capacity and competence to be able to implement programmes and projects and policies that would help to turn around the fortunes of our state especially on the economy side. I have the experience even in project implementation in Bayelsa State. And some of you know projects that I have implemented in your communities even when I am not governor. So I am putting my CV on the table against other aspirants who are also credible Bayelsans, leaders that have capacity. I am telling delegates to compare and contrast those who have a clear vision to make our state grow and those who have vision waiting for the thing to fall on their laps. I am not an accidental leader, I prepared myself for leadership and our state does not need an accidental leader at this time. We have to be deliberate to picking a leader. So, I enjoin all delegates to support me in this exercise so that together we can make a new lease of life and change for our state to the glory of the Almighty God and not to myself.
