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●•Soludo’s running haphazard administration in Anambra
From Obinna Odogwu, Awka
Former member of the House of Representatives for Awka North and South Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Hon. Chinedu Onwuaso, has criticised former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for saying that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would have been crisis free if it had listened to his advice.
In this interview with Daily Sun, the former lawmaker also berated Governor Chukwuma Soludo, saying that he doesn’t have any clear plan for the state. Excerpts:
What would you make of this country at 65, post-independence? Are you satisfied with the level of progress recorded so far?
First of all, I would like us to look at what independence means. When you are talking of independence, it means that you’re not depending on any other powers or external influence to achieve what you want to achieve for your people. Are we really independent? I ask because we are still depending on people outside for our basic needs. What are those basic needs? We are talking about food, security and some basic infrastructure. If up till today, we still look for Lebanese to build our roads, we are not independent. If we are looking for Chinese, we are not independent. If we are looking for whoever that is not from this country, we are not independent. Meanwhile, we have an educational system that produces professors, PhD holders in engineering and other fields, and you are still saying that we’re independent? Are we really independent? Even politically, are we really independent when you have to go to Chatham House to speak about the governance of Nigeria and to look for endorsements? Are we independent, when you have to pack your bag and go to Rome, seeking for whatever you call it from the Vatican or whoever. Are we independent, when you have to go to the UK, US, France looking for their support. Who will give you support of any kind without demanding for anything? So, we are not independent. We are dependent until we start looking inwards, using our own people for our own things, enforcing our own laws for ourselves, and not borrowing other people’s laws that are not enforceable in our society. We have over 1,000 or close to 1,000 agencies in Nigeria, all of them are dependent on the budget of the country where you see money being given. None of them can stand and raise money for itself. Even when they do, it is not accounted for. How independent are we? We can’t wait until we are 200 years old because the world is moving faster. Those countries that were able to make it within 100 years, that was then. The level of knowledge, communication and awareness as they stand today are not the same with the past. If it took China about 30 or 40 years to overturn a lot of things, what are we still waiting for? So, when you’re telling me that Nigeria is 65 years and we’re boasting of independence when we still borrow a lot of money outside the country; meanwhile there’s nothing we don’t have. Okay, look at the issue between Dangote and PENGASSAN. Is that independence when some set of people who have been there are not encouraging even the little that is thriving in Nigeria. And we are talking of politics; using politics to destroy a lot of things. Until we learn to have round pegs in round holes in Nigeria, that is when we will start talking of independence; and not tribal bigotry. So, those things are what will make us independent. Until we learn to be accountable for our actions; until we learn to be accountable to the people.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said recently that PDP’s problems wouldn’t have existed if he were the National Chairman or if the present leaders of the party took his advice. What exactly is the problem with your party?
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What advice will you take from Atiku who is over seventy-something years? And the same party advised him and said please stop contesting and he refused. Is that not an ambition? Are we going to take your ambition as advice in the party? How many parties have Atiku defected to? So, it is more of ambition than advice. You want to advise what will soothe your ambition. It’s not proper. Now, the PDP has zoned presidency to the south. What stopped them from zoning the presidency to the south in 2023? It was the same thing. So, what is Atiku advising? You can’t cry when the head is already cut off. He jumped the board. He was told, ‘do not contest’. Everybody must not be President. It has to be for the wellbeing of Nigeria, not for your personal interest. Yes, he would have been a good president. I don’t know. But you can’t have three good presidents at the same time. It is only one. So, if we are talking about zoning, when the north has taken two tenures through Buhari, why did Atiku contest again? When he is talking about advising or people taking his advice, now he has gone to the ADC, let him put everything on board and make ADC prosper. You can’t be more cunning than every other person. I think what is making them to be jittery in ADC is because Obi has not ported fully into the ADC; because that is the expectation of everybody; that the moment they form a coalition under ADC and lure Obi inside; the moment Obi comes in, the Obidients will follow him. Politics doesn’t work that way. That’s why people like me refused to jump the board. I said let me see what is happening. PDP has a convention coming up, isn’t it? Let’s see what the convention will give. Until we run that convention and bring it to conclusion, and see the direction, then we’ll know what next. But for now, nobody will write the PDP off. Nobody.
Anambra State Governorship Election will be taking place on November 8 and the current governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, is seeking a second term. How would you rate his last three and half years office?
Governance is not easy. Sometimes you think that the moment you sit on the seat everything flows; once you command it moves. It is done with people, by the people. So, when he came on board everybody was watching. He came with a big board saying that he is a professor of economics. And what are we talking about? When you talk about economics, is it not to make things easier for the people? Anambra has some level of revenue generation. Money is coming through the federal allocation account. What can you make of it? And that is where the problem comes. Yes, he wanted to make a change within the party structure; the party you are using. Isn’t it? You almost retired the people that were there. You wanted to build your own people around you. As a professor of economics, you should bring the square peg into the square hole. Goodluck Jonathan did it when he was ruling Nigeria. He searched around and got people who can turn things around; when they are talking, they’re talking from the point of experience. Unfortunately, Soludo came on board with a promise of Dubai-Taiwan in Anambra State. Everybody was expecting that at least there are things that will run through to show that he has a plan. I think the problem he is having which he will continue to have is that he has no drawn plan on board where to start and what he expects to have as a conclusion. At least to say I was able to drive to this point or that point. He doesn’t have a target. What he is doing is haphazard interventions with projects especially with road construction; to show physical things achieved. That is not how to run a state and make it prosper. It has to be a penned down, targeted mode of approach; this is what I want to get done when I am leaving; if it’s four years or eight years. And you believe in your course and by the time you start achieving it, it might not come immediately; so there should be no rush. What you are doing is you’re affecting the lives of the people. It is not all about your ambition. And that is the point. What you are targeting to do, how will it affect the lives of the people in the years to come? So, what I will tell you is this. In as much as people are seeing that he is doing with road projects; Ngige built roads, Obi built roads. Where are those roads? He has come now to build roads. Everything in Anambra should not be only roads. You build the one that will collapse tomorrow so that the next person will come and start patching them up or building another one. Willie didn’t build any road so that’s why it seems Soludo is doing a lot. He has built roads; yeah, targeted roads. It is true that with roads you can have development but it is not about roads because those roads will break down with time. When you are targeting to build a road, what are you targeting to achieve with it? There must be other follow ups. If you’re building roads to farmlands, there should be infrastructure to help the agricultural sector so that the roads will be useful for those particular things you are targeting. If you are building roads for transportation, then specifically, the transport sector should be money yielding for the state. So, those roads, are they intermittent palliatives to show that yes, there is something on ground. Or are they targeted towards achieving a particular aim of developing certain economic sectors? What is the end result?
Are you saying that he didn’t come prepared for governance; that he just wanted to be addressed as governor?
He has no drawn plan. So, almost everything he’s doing will end up not having economic value or changing what we already have in Anambra State. We have seen roads before. What special thing was he targeting to achieve? I am sorry to say it. Election is coming up in November. Have you seen where he said ‘look, I have achieved this within this period? This is my next target or what I will achieve in the next term’. Have you heard him say so? That will tell you that he has run out of ideas. What is functional now with him is ambition. He has become distracted. That is why in most campaigns you see that it is tantrums that they are throwing. I have run campaigns. Leave tantrums, tell the people, ‘okay, I have built this road to this level; this is why I built it; so that in the next session of my administration, this is where I will head, so that we’ll have this or that.’ That way, people will hold you responsible; people will know that this is where you are heading to; people in the diaspora will say ‘look, if this man is targeting this, I can bring in my money along that line.’ And that is where you start attracting investors. Have you moved from Amansea into Ugwuoba going to Enugu? Have you looked left and right of that expressway and see what is happening in Enugu State? Did you see factories coming up? Yes! Did you notice that the level of estates being developed in Anambra is dwindling? Haven’t you noticed? The first year of Soludo, a lot of estate developers jumped in. Have you checked what is happening now? Go to Enugu and see what is happening. Small time Enugu will merge with 9th Mile because of housing estates; in terrains that are worse than what we have in Anambra but people preferred them. Why is it so? It is because they have a targeted idea of where they want to get to. From 9th Mile coming to Oji River, look to your left and right… Soludo has no plan for Anambra State for now. I have not seen what plans he has for Anambra. He is not targeting a particular sector or a particular thing that he wants to achieve. All he is doing is haphazard road construction to show that there is infrastructure on ground. As an economist there should be a plan. Much is expected from him as a professor.
