Fred Itua, Abuja
Mr. Nana Ogbodo is the Executive Secretary of the Local Government State Pensions Board in Enugu State. He is a historian, lawyer, public servant and politician. He has consulted for various state governments on political communications, legitimately and constructively assisting them in conveying the true essence of their obligations to the citizens. As a lawyer, he has continued to call to duty his forensic orientation in the course of his interventions in issues of national importance. He was Director of Communication of Ugwuanyi’s campaign organisation. In this interview, He spoke on sundry issues.
What is your reaction to the recent second term election victory of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi?
My reaction is that it is praiseworthy to be in the hands of God! I have now been convinced beyond doubt that when you place everything in the hands of God, you would find God’s hand in everything you are doing. Everything ended in praise! There was no incident; no ballot box snatching, no brigandage and no death in the course of electioneering and elections in the state such that our state was adjudged the best in orderliness and peaceful conduct in the whole federation. It goes further to underscore our proudly claim that Enugu is the most peaceful state in the whole federation. It also further sustains my thesis that the character of the person at the helm of affairs influences everything else in the state. The governor and our candidate at the gubernatorial election is a man of peace who has refused to be overtaken by the violence of Nigerian politics. This disposition has influenced politics and politicking in the state such that even during the campaigns, it was simply a carnival of sorts to felicitate with the people. I want to thank the good people of our dear state for demonstrating their appreciation of the governor’s focused interventions in the state by the unprecedented unanimity of their votes. It was an awesome experience observing how grateful the electorate in Enugu could be with their votes for all the transformative programmes of the governor in the last fours.
What was the secret behind this victory?
He scored above 97 percent at the election. Most Igbo don’t know what values to place on their votes especially partisan electoral votes. I bet you, if there were no soldiers out there, the empty streets would have been variously turned to football fields. Our people prefer to play football and other games during elections to sparing their time to cast their votes. But if it is Big Brother Nigeria voting, the bulk of the voting population comes from the Igbo. I hope that our people would realise that in the circumstance of the evident unreliability of our population census exercises in recent years, voting strength of a people is now subtly employed in determining their likely population. It is also a political weapon in assessing what value to place on a particular group of people or state. It is certainly not a good feature to imagine that war-torn states like Yobe and Borno would be posting figures far above one million each, and a peaceful state like Enugu could barely boast of 500,000!
But it wasn’t only in Enugu; it is indeed in all the states of the South East. It was so abysmal such that if you add up all the votes garnered during the presidential election in all the five states, it does not compare to the figure of Yobe and Jigawa states put together. In the case of Enugu, the people could perhaps be excused by the apparent complacency of a great majority of the voting population who truly believed our candidate did not in fact have a credible opponent at the election. Most people actually believed it was a no contest especially as no other party in the state actually campaigned. It was only the PDP and our candidate that campaigned and many believed that there was no need ‘wasting’ their time to vote since he did not have an opponent at the election, so to speak.
You were the Director of Communications of the PDP Campaign Organisation. How much impact would you say your office had in the governor’s victory? Also, how much impact did the power of incumbency have on his victory?
I guess it would be unseemly for me to begin to assess my performances as Director of Communications. It was a privilege to be so appointed to such a vantage position by my party, and it was not lost on me that it was a pivotal position to the success or otherwise of the whole campaign. But although I was the man in the eyes of the world, it is modest for me to state that I did not work alone. We worked as a team and I am indeed proud of the campaign team. I am happy that we succeeded and everything ended in praise. I would however wish that such assessment be done by someone else.
Coming to what impact the power of incumbency might have played in the governor’s victory; there can be no denying the factor of incumbency for a sitting governor going for a re-election. But it is not always a positive factor for the incumbent because such contest is often a referendum on his tenure. Whereas the new entrant can afford to make wild promises, the incumbent is being judged by what he has been able to achieve with the mandate he already has. For Governor Ugwuanyi, his good works were speaking for him everywhere we went. There was no part of the state you would visit without the Ugwuanyi phenomenon staring at you. If it does not stare at you by the construction works going on simultaneously in all the 480 autonomous communities around the state, the peace prevailing in the state would stare at you. The roads, hospitals and schools he is constructing would stare at you; the prompt payment of salaries and pensions that get paid on the 24th of every month, whether there is allocation or not from the centre would state at you. So it was merely an affirmation as the result of the referendum was resoundingly positive. Therefore the incumbency factor for him at the election was consequent upon his sterling performances.
Now that Governor Ugwuanyi has won a second term in office, are there any areas of administration you would want him to focus or improve upon in his second tenure?
How do we actually say thank you to the good people of Enugu State. I think it would be best served by the governor continuing to serve the state in the selfless and committed manner he has been doing. For him to continue to sooth the frayed nerves; for him to continue to make the civil servants earn their living; for him to continue to make the traders a part of the government; for him to continue to make the rural dwellers a part of the government, because this is perhaps the first time that government is been taken beyond the nucleus of the cities and out to the rural communities; for him to continue to promote peace and reconciliation in the state. I have no doubt that in the near future; many states would have various things to learn about what has transformed Enugu under Governor Ugwuanyi. First is the relevance of peace in a democratic setting. I can confirm from our experience in the last four years that peace is indeed the bedrock of virtually every development in a democratic setting. If Enugu can today sustain, with or without the monthly allocations from the centre and without having to weather any hailstorm in the payment of salaries and pensions, as well as other developmental projects, it is only attributable to the immutable derivatives of peace in the state. Peace is about almost everything in a democracy. Any democratic setting without peace is worse than a military regime! And we are fortunate that we have a man who has enthroned peace, who enthroned reconciliation, who enthroned purposefulness in governance in the state. How I wish the constitution had permitted a longer duration of tenure; the state would have been permanently cured of all such swashbuckling tendencies; all such miasma of misplaced confidence and arrogance of power which had combined in the past to arrest the development of the state. Governor Ugwuanyi is indeed a goal!