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By Wilfred Eya
Labour Party Governorship Candidate in the November 11 election in Imo State, Senator Athan Achonu, in this interview spoke on why he is running, his chances and how he will fight insecurity if elected,
Why do you want to be the governor of Imo State?
Over the years, I have been preaching to Nigerians on the fact that we are endowed with resources and there is a need to use it in providing for the less privileged. In Imo, we are blessed with both mineral and human resources. Take a look at China, which became the focus of the world due to its huge human resources. Despite being blessed with a lot of solid minerals, they are focused on manufacturing and creating jobs for their teeming population. We can do the same in Imo because we have abundant human and mineral resources. While I am looking at putting an end to insecurity, I am concerned about Imolites suffering and hunger because it is unbelievable. It is also worrisome that people can no longer go home.
How are you going to address insecurity?
It is easy because insecurity began when governors started starving local governments of funds. Immediately governors stopped conducting local government elections and started controlling their funds, all hell broke loose. If elected, I will declare an emergency on security and set up a caretaker committee to oversee the local governments for six months. If they perform well, then they can go and contest. When you have elected councillors and elected local government chairmen, they can tell when a stranger enters into their domain. There is no country on earth where the security agents don’t know the criminals. Every policing is local; every security is local. Those in the rural areas feel alienated, so I am going to change all that. After that, I will declare an emergency on the power sector. Thanks to former President Muhammadu Buhari, who gave approval to states to generate power. Within my first 24 months, there will be power in the state.
Do you have faith in the electoral process?
I have fate in the electoral process and I also believe that those in the judiciary are Nigerians. I believe in the judiciary because there are so many good men there. I believe that if there are three to four million people who actively steal in government, there are four million Nigerians who are also waiting for their own turn to steal.
What drives your ambition?
I want to give back, I want to make a change. I have told myself that I would face the demons that are killing my people. Do you know how many lives have been lost in Igboland, particularly Imo State? Do you know how many houses have been destroyed? Do you know how many years rebuilding Imo will take? We no longer have the police to protect people against crime. Are you aware that the police stations that were destroyed in Imo have not been repaired to date? I intend to change these things in order to bring back sanity to my state. Imo people are hardworking. We have traders, professors and industry leaders but we cannot invest any longer because we have no safe haven to do so. It is because of bad governance that we are being chased from our homeland. It has to stop!
How connected are you to the people and how sure are you that your connection with the people will guarantee your victory?
I will not just win, it will be a landslide. I didn’t come out to run because I want to run. I was pressured. My kind of person succumbs to superior arguments. They made the argument with which I agreed. The governor was my colleague in the Senate and we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. If I contest in an election against him 10 times, I will win. Incumbency is when you do something that you like. He (the governor) said he is building roads. Which road? They are Federal roads. Where are the state resources going? They are trying to bamboozle Imolites but Imolites are too smart for that. For instance, how are they going to build a seaport? Where are the resources?
It’s been said that he built some core roads that drive movement of people and goods. How do you react to that?
There is no doubt about the fact that those are key roads, but they are Federal roads. I am going to have a very good rapport with the Federal Government because if the FG respects you, they will support you. If the FG sees that when they invest in your road network, you will invest the state funds in its roads and create an enabling environment for the economy to thrive, they will support you. Government invests where it can get returns. I am going to create an enabling environment for the economy to thrive, ensuring that the government generates revenue from us.
What are the conditions that would guarantee a free and fair governorship election in Imo?
The Police Commissioner in Imo has to go and the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, has to go. The commissioner was chased out of Adamawa State. He also left Imo after what happened in the House of Assembly election, then he went to Adamawa to repeat the same, yet he was brought back to Imo because Imolites have no one to speak for them. If the governor spoke for Imolite, he wouldn’t have been allowed to return. It is high time the power of incumbency was thrown aside so that people can elect leaders of their choice.
Apart from industrialisation, what other plans do you have for the people of Imo State?
We are going to focus on education and health. Already, health is an area in which I have invested my brain and resources. I am the person building a health centre in every local government in Nigeria. When they gave me the plan, I saw that there was absence of healthcare in the rural area. It is not just poverty and hunger, there is also disease and lack of care. At the time, the old health centres had been abandoned, thus became dilapidated. I went around, did a study and said it had to change. Health is important to me.
What is your take on IPOB and their activities?
I am telling my brother who out of hunger ventured into criminality to please come out of the bushes, come home; I am going to provide a secured environment where they can find daily bread and employments so that they can remove their self from criminality and become better citizens and they should stop killing fellow Igbo people. What type of Biafra are they propagating; is it not the same Biafra that I sacrificed this arm for. Biafra is there to protect your siblings, your parents, towns, village people from outside attack. Anybody who is not doing that is not Igbo and not Biafra; so anywhere you see such people who are armed trying to kill any Igbo person, attack that person, defend yourself and kill him; they are not Biafrans and that is why I brought down myself to rather die than have my parents killed
What message do you have for voters in Imo State?
I want to let them know that salvation is coming. I want to tell my brothers who, out of hunger, venture into criminality to please come home and vote for me because I will provide a secure environment where they can find their daily bread and get employed. They can abandon criminality and become better people. I will protect their interests, challenge and speak truth to power.
