Henry Okonkwo
Barely eight days after the presidential and National Assembly elections, and with five days to the next round of voting at the gubernatorial and state House of Assembly polls, lawyer and social critic, Monday Onyekachi Ubani, has expressed concerns at the capacity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure the conduct of a free and fair elections at the state level.
According to Ubani, his fears stemmed from the ominous signs of compromise by the state electoral umpire.
The former second-vice chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the immediate past chairman of NBA, Ikeja, in this interview disclosed why he is keen on the gubernatorial election that would be held in Abia State, and why he has thrown his weight in support of the All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate, Uche Samson Ogah. Excerpts:
The presidential and national assembly elections have come and gone with the winners declared by INEC. What are your expectations from President Buhari as he returns for his second term?
The country at this point in time requires cohesion, pulling all the resources, both human and natural resources, together to actualize a dream that all of us have for this nation. I expect the president creating a sense of unity, purpose and pursuit of good governance. He should brace to ensure security of lives and property, and in the issue of basic infrastructure that would stimulate the economy. Also, it is very important we should get the issue of power sorted out because it would help create an efficient economy. An efficient economy sorts out so many issues like frustration, criminality, crisis and agitations. Then the government should consider redefining our constitution and allow some level of restructuring that would allow more power to be devolved to the state governments. This issue of demarcation between federal and states roads are not helping anyone. I think it is best to allow states to concentrate on every road under their jurisdiction. The states and local governments are the base for governance; everyone is from a state, everyone is from a local government. So, if you develop the states and the local governments, you have developed Nigeria. Let us not be waiting for an octopus Federal Government to be doing some basic things that are supposed to be done by the local government and the states. Now, for the past 16 years, there has not been any government at the local government level in all the states of the federation; 98 per cent of state governments is stealing the money that is meant for the local government administration by force. So, the issue of restructuring is one of the agenda that we’ll propose and then how to sit down and devolve some of the powers the Federal Government is currently controlling to the state.
Are you satisfied with INEC’s conduct of the elections thus far?
I am not satisfied with INEC. Their leadership at the top level may mean well, but many INEC officials at the states and the lower levels are already compromised. It is only someone like Mike Igini that I can vouch for. You can’t compromise him because he’s not interested in money; he’s interested in helping create a country that is functional.
But isn’t it the INEC hierarchy that appointed these officials at the states?
Yes, but they don’t monitor them at the states. And, therefore, they don’t know what is going on there. Even the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) themselves would also appoint officials who have all been compromised. For example, few days to the elections in Abia State, I caught a young man with an already written election results before the presidential polls. I exposed them and the story trended all over the various social media platforms. We found him with an already prepared result of elections that were yet to be conducted right inside his file ready for submission. But the Abia State government started running to and fro, trying to scandalize us. That is what they do. When they are caught in their mess they pay so much money in other to whitewash their mess.
You seem to have developed a keen interest in Abia State politics and have become more vocal in criticizing the incumbent state government. What prompted you into this?
Abia today is the most underdeveloped state in the federation, and I say this with every sense of responsibility. Go to other states of the federation, and go to Abia, then come and tell me what you’ve seen. The roads are one place where the refuse dumps compete with the roads. And they don’t care to do anything for the people because they know they would rig the election and do all manner of things to remain in power. They don’t care what the peoples’ wish or mandate is. They are not doing anything to even whitewash their government and say ‘okay let’s do certain things to please Abians’. Nothing! There’s nothing happening at all. All along I’ve been worried about Abia State. And I found no leader with enough capacity to govern the state until I saw it in the person of Dr Uche Samson Ogah. I saw so much in him. I saw a man who is audacious and brims with great ideas. You can see how he managed to build a conglomerate –Masters Energy that today has the biggest farm tank in West Africa. Abia State government would rather spend monies to advertise non-existing projects they claim to have accomplished. They claimed to have finished building the Osisioma flyover. But go there now you’ll only see seven pillars erected there. So, for four years, the government has only erected seven pillars. Nothing else is going on at that Osisioma flyover site. Whereas in a neighbouring Ebony State that is not an oil-producing state, their governor has put up three standard internationally acclaimed flyovers.
Dr. Ogah is a contestant from APC. How are you sure he’ll be accepted in the state, especially when you consider the level of voter apathy easterners tend to exhibit towards the party?
That is one issue I must dispassionately address because some people have genuinely expressed concerns about it. Their concerns range from the allegation that APC is not a popular party in the East, and as such may not be favourable to Uche Ogah. Now, let me debunk this notion. One, many that hold that view are mostly Abians who stay outside Abia State. The truth of the matter is that at present, many Abians, who are at home, do not care or mind the political platform Uche Ogah is employing to actualize his desires for the state. The label ‘Uche Ogah of Masters Energy’ is what resonates in their hearts and minds of Abians. Again Abians have tasted one political party for over 19 years and I can tell you that majority are not satisfied.
Former governor, T.A Orji at the end of his tenure in 2015 zoned power to Ngwa bloc. The incumbent governor, Okezie Ikpeazu has done one term and is aiming to do a second tenure. Would this not work against Dr Ogah?
The argument, that ‘this is the turn of the Ngwas to complete their eight years tenure. So, Dr Uche Ogah should wait, and allow an Ngwa man to run the whole hog of his tenure before handing over to an Abian from another zone?’. However, I must tell you that the advantages of zoning if any have never manifested with the leaders that have governed Abia. For instance ex-governor T.A Orji comes from Umuahia, and he was governor for eight solid years and the evidence on ground is that Umuahia and its environs were left more in ruins than under any leadership that have superintended over Abia. The present governor of Abia is from Ngwa and the truth is that Ngwas are gnashing their teeth presently more than under any regime that has existed in Abia. The Latin maxim of ‘Nemo dat quod non habet’ (no one can give what he does not have) aptly applies here, because good governance knows no tribe, religion and sex.
Many chiefs and even royal fathers have come to give pass mark to this present government in Abia State? Could it be that they are seeing some achievements that you probably are not seeing?
What this government does is to settle the ‘stakeholders’ from whatever they get from the federal allocation. Those are the people you hear giving him pass mark. Because if you come to Abia State, it would only take someone who has sold his soul to the devil to openly say that the present administration of Okezie Ikpeazu is doing well.cThere’s no local government area in Abia that you can point at to show any audacious project Governor Okezie has accomplished. Even the roads he said he built. Go to those so-called roads and see if they are standard roads. They are roads that can’t last two or three years. None of them can last like the roads that were built by Sam Mbakwe many years ago. So, what would make somebody to say that the man has done something for the state if not for what they are benefitting. The same people were giving the former governor, T.A Orji pass mark, calling him ‘Ochendo’ and praising him that he is the best thing to happen to Abia. But after his tenure elapsed and he left government, the same people that praised him, now tagged him the worst governor Abia has ever had. That tells that the kind of people in Abia. Everybody there is cowed because they intimidate people. Their e-rats are all over the place saying ‘Ubani has done this and that’. They pay media companies to scandalize and intimidate you when you speak up against their deceits. But we are more than them now. Nobody is afraid of their threats anymore. We are now strong enough to say ‘no we cannot continue to allow Abia to be sold to the devil’. Abia has to be liberated. And we have people who have now come up and are bold enough to tell these guys that what they are doing in Abia is wrong.