I HVAE NO RELATIONSHIP WITH IBB......OHAKIM

 We are still in semi-primitive society.....Ohakim






Ikedi Ohakim, Imo State governor In 2007, Ikedi Ohakim was elected governor of
Imo State on the platform of the Progressive Peoples’ Alliance (PPA). He later
defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a move that was described by
many as an unwise decision. But in this interview with journalists recently in
Abuja, he speaks on why he made the decision and his passion to transform Imo
State. Our Correspondent, TONY AILEMEN was there.
Excerpts...

Your Excellency, to what extent would you say you have met the aspirations of
your people as far as provision of infrastructure is concerned?

As a governor, I am not a building contractor that is judged by the number of
roads he has built or number of bridges he has constructed. That is a factor of
how much money you get from the federal government, it does not show leadership.

But the media seem to be confused about those who are working and those who are
tarrying roads. Somebody like me doesn’t take that as important because we
take it as our primary responsibility.

In Imo, we have done more roads than all the governors put together since 1976
when the state was created, similarly we have done more water projects, but that
is not the issue, we have set up institutions.

For example, we have Stock Exchange right now in the state, we have Court of
Appeal, which has never happened before, we have Imo State Investment Promotion
Agency, we have something like the old PWD, controlling everywhere we have
christened IRROMA - Imo Rural Roads Maintenance, Agency that has attracted World
Bank Partnership with Imo state government. The media don’t even look at the
impacts of the creation of these institutions.

You can also look at where somebody is coming from; take the example of my
friend from Lagos State, Tinubu laid the foundation, he designed all the roads
and sourced the money. Gov Babatunde Fashola just came in and latched onto it
from day one and started running. But in Imo state, we came in and met no law on
maintenance of infrastructure, no design for the Government House, no
engineering survey, no inherited road designs, no study, nothing. What they were
doing was just to get money from the federal government and share it.

Now, we are doing the conceptualization, design, study, looking for the manpower
to execute and at the same time looking for the finances to execute the
projects. We are starting everything from the scratch. Despite all these, we are
still running faster than most of the states.

A lot of people have criticized your leadership styles. For example, some
believe that you have spent more time talking than working. How would you react
to this?

What we have are criminal minded political class that have no place where they
put akara to sell, yet their expenditure profile in a month is not less than
N10million to N20million. They have over 50 people following them and the only
way they can finance that kind of life style is to harass the government in
power.

But we decided in Imo that will not solve the problem. So we decided to use the
resources of the people to help everybody, including the big politicians, to
succeed. When we pulled out 10,000 jobs on offer, Nigerians said it is
impossible.

Today, you can see that we are making it possible. We are taking 10,000
graduates and we got KPMG to act as consultants for the project. The son of a
poor man does not require anybody to help him to get the job under the system
when he can use his brain. When we said we are taking 30,000 people as sweepers
and cleaners of the environment, people thought it was impossible. Today they
are all working.

We are now creating the Wonder Lake Resort, which fortunately for us, former
American President Bill Clinton will be coming with our own President Goodluck
Jonathan to do the ground breaking ceremony in August this year.

That project is expected to employ no less than 40,000 people. We set up Job
Centre as the first of its kind in Nigeria. We are people of ideas; we took some
of our youths to the present ongoing World Cup and all of them came back to
Nigeria. We exposed them to leadership training, how to maintain good
environment.

As I speak now, I have no fewer than 600 people on government scholarship
abroad; those who are going to be leaders of tomorrow, yet the media will not
see all these things.

There is something Champion Newspapers did for us, they called it "Special
Edition" with special focus on what we have been able to achieve in the past
three years. They examined what we had done comparing it with what the past
administration did in Imo; I want you to take a look at it. Take time to go
through it and you will see how far we have gone.

What I want you to do is to tell the world the truth, present the picture as it
is; to stop these people who are using the media to harass me to give them
money, because I am not ready to "dash out" the people’s hard earned money to
anybody.

I have a contract with the people of Imo that every penny I spend must have
added value to their lives. Even if I do not go for second term, I am not
interested. I have never in a day slept more than three hours since I became
governor.

I have attracted projects of N250billion to Imo state from the federal
government. I make bold to say that no state governor in Nigeria under this
dispensation has been able to achieve this. Whatever I took to former President
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, he signed for me.

He approved the Alvan Ikoku College of Education project, which saves me N40
million of my subvention every month. He gave me a road worth N3.5 billion,
three sub power stations worth N7billion, Silos in Okigwe worth N7billion,
dredging of Nworie River worth N8billion, Ugwuta Naval Base, Court of Appeal,
and so on.

Now NNPC is partnering us on the petroleum refinery that we are constructing.
They are giving us about six oil wells to put in our refinery. Nobody... and I
say it, you can verify it anywhere, no governor has been able to do this much,
South East, South-South, South-West, North-West.

For you to be able to do these things, you must be able to package yourself,
package the project, put the potential, sell it, and get presidential
endorsement. Despite the highly competing interests, I was able to do this. So
that will tell you what we are doing now for our state. If you enter Owerri
today, it is like any of the major cities in the advanced societies such as
Johannesburg or Paris.

Any time I travel abroad and come back to Owerri, I become a happy man. And I
want to seize this opportunity to tell you that I am one of the happiest people
in this country. I have done exceedingly well. I am going to give you some of my
books to read. I am writing a book now which I entitled "The Consequence of
Courage." I have written the "Courage to Challenge." The new book talks about
the consequence of all the decision I have taken. They call it "The Ten Flash
Points of Governor Ohakim."

I banned Okada first in Nigeria and people thought that hell will let loose; I
have one of the best city transport systems called the IMTS - Imo Municipal
Transport System. I have taken agriculture to the next level.

Among the states in Nigeria, only Imo state got N8billion facility from this new
Central Bank facility for agriculture. This is partly because we have an ongoing
partnership project with a South African company called AGRONOVA.

That agricultural programme we are running now is going to give employment to
over 50,000 people in Imo State. All these things we have done to give
governance new meaning in Imo state. I also know that there is no governor in
Nigeria that has given more executive bills to the legislature like we have done
in Imo state.

Just last week alone, I signed 8 bills into law, all executive bills from me
alone! When I was commissioner between 1991 and 1993, I was the only
commissioner that was sending bills to the State House of Assembly; no other
commissioner did as much as I did then. I have given more laws than the House of
Assembly could generate internally.

What is your vision for Imo state?

We are setting up institutions and in the next 15 years, God willing, we hope to
be able to attract immigrants into Imo state who are seeking for jobs. This is
because of the foundation we are laying today.

There is nothing we have done without putting proper thinking into it. When I
wanted to establish IRROMA, we said 300 roads in 30 days and people thought it
was impossible but we did it. When we came to operation festival, it was also
the same thing. It was the same with all the programmes we did. I am a man that
can close my eyes and see into the future. As I sit down I can picture colour of
things in 30 years time. I design my programme, I look into the future.

People are wondering why you had to leave the PPA when Nigerians are looking
forward to PPA providing a viable alternative to PDP.

I founded the Progressive Peoples’ Alliance, PPA... Go to INEC now and find
out; the headquarters of PPA is No. 8 Haile Selassie Street, Abuja. It is my
personal house and I used it to register the party. I took it to Orji Uzor Kalu.
He is my friend but all his things are built on shaky foundation and now they
have started to crumble. When I saw that this is not a man that I can work with
I pulled out of PPA and hell was let loose.

The media took me to the cleaners and one writer said I have committed political
suicide. This is a man who I debate political and economic issues with
regularly. Today, both himself and others a singing a different tune; people
have now seen why I left the PPA and Orji Kalu and came back to the Peoples
Democratic Party, (PDP).

Imo people have seen the projects I have attracted to the state. Every decision
I take or every move I make people misinterpret. You can see what happened when
late President Yar’Adua died; they tried to knock my head with President
Goodluck Jonathan. I was in the United States and they were saying all sorts of
things about me.

The last time when we appointed the new PDP national chairman, they said I took
the man to court and these were all lies. The philosophy of "Nshiko" (crab)
mentality or Nshikism is like a situation where blind people are put into a deep
hole or crabs are put into a basin of water. As one tries to climb to the top,
others will be dragging him down and unfortunately, the Igbo have remained in
that situation for a very long time now, we are not moving forward.

We are no more part of the tripod in this country; people laugh at us while
recruiting the renegades amongst us and called them leaders. Those who have the
potentials to make things happen, they kill at will. Fake organizations are
taking over every day.

Recently, somebody wrote in the papers that they saw me frolicking in Cape Town,
South Africa. Since I was born, I have never been to Cape Town. I have been to
South Africa on several occasions yes, but never been to Cape Town.

When they listed all the properties they said I bought, they came close to N50
billion; what is the total income of Imo state since I became governor? So
people just cook up all sorts of nonsense.

Fifty Three tribunal cases were instituted against me, yet I am still a happy
man. I have won all remaining the Supreme Court case that is coming up on July
16.

So I have gone through a lot of problems and I still try to protect my
predecessors. I don’t fight them because I do not like the pull him down
syndrome. But the same people are the ones going to the media, some print fake
magazines, against me showing how I impregnated one woman in America. My wife
said, go and impregnate more. What is wrong about it if you can impregnate as
many, I am your wife; thank God for giving me an understanding woman. She knows
me very well so she does not believe in the rubbish they write.

In terms of roads, we have done the cheapest per kilometre. If you go to our
website; we advertise jobs online and give jobs to people. I have never given
anybody note to go and look for job. I have never collected any penny from any
contractor since I became governor; these entire claim can be verified and God
has been with me 100 per cent.

There is a road we did now from Owerri airport to Port Harcourt airport crossing
over 20 villages to a place called Eche in Rivers State. I have done road in
Rivers state. It is the best project in this country because if there is any
problem at any of the two airports, all you need do is to enter your car and
within 30 minutes you are at the other airport.

It was an idea I sold to former Governor Celestine Omehia and we went on to sign
the agreement, but when Chibuike Ameachi came in, it did not form part of his
immediate priority, so single-handedly, I decided to do it. It is one of the
projects Mr. President will be coming to Imo to commission soon.

I am the only governor in Nigeria without an office. This is because before I
came in, the shanty they called office was set ablaze by politicians on May, 7,
2007. I had to build a new one, which the president is also going to commission.
I have dualised all the entry roads into the state capital, Owerri. Street
lights in Owerri is 24 hours in the night, we operate them with alternative
energy. Before 6.00 am they would have finished sweeping the streets in Owerri.

Yet, all these have been made possible through prudent management of resources.
What we receive in one year is what states like Rivers, Bayelsa or Akwa Ibom
each receive in one month as subvention. Go and find out.

You were right when you said you were the one who started the banning on "Okada"
in Nigeria as a means of transport. What is the statistics now like, has there
been any improvement in accident rates?

I want you to do the investigation yourself. Let me say this that before the ban
on okada, the accident ward at the Federal Medical Center in Owerri was always
100 per cent occupied with another 50 per cent lying on the floor. Right now you
do not have up to 10 per cent.

This is the official hospital report. There are no more people hanging their
legs. In terms of people going back to the other informal sector or trade, our
people have moved back to carpentry, plumbing, electrical and people are now
having the apprentices again and we did something that had never been done by
creating what we called "Enterprise Zones" where we open a place and put all the
necessary infrastructures and then take all these artisans there and give them
shops.

I shed tears when I went to the one at Nekede, you see people in action, booming
businesses! People working and making genuine contributions to the economy just
the way we wanted it. I was spurred to now put in these places, adult and non
formal education centres where those who want to work and go to school will have
the schools closer to their places of work. Those children that did not go to
formal schools can now have the opportunity.

We have also created the ministry of housing handling the establishment of
estates closer to those centres. People will no longer travel too far and this
concept has and is still transforming the economy of these areas.

We have now started to address the epidemic of kidnappings, changing the
people’s orientation for them to embrace the right attitude to life. It is
helping people to know the benefit of job switch. When we came in we had less
than 2,200 hotel rooms but today, we have close to 8,200 hotel rooms in Imo. All
these are aimed at creating employment for the teeming populace. A Canadian firm
is building a three-star hotel in Owerri, the state capital.

What are you doing to make the people buy into your dream for the people in your
state?

We are doing a lot to make sure that the common man is carried along,
understands and appreciates what we are doing. A great philosopher once said
there are two types of leaders; those who are in front and ask others to follow
and those who are at the back and whipping others to move ahead. Now, one thing
we must notice in our society, whether you like it or not, we are still in
semi-primitive society and leaders must take risks on behalf of the people,
whether the people know what they are doing or not.

At last, the ultimate thing is for them to appreciate it. When we were banning
okada, people were demonstrating and the Okada Union took us to court in Enugu,
today they bring cows to thank me for taking that decision. Similarly, it was
the same when we banned sale of cars on the streets of Owerri. Do you know that
it is only in Owerri you have no sale of cars in the city in Nigeria?

We have a car market equipped with all the infrastructural facilities and you
can go there on tourism expedition with your family. But when we banned people
from selling cars on the streets we had about 15 court cases against us. Today,
every Christmas and Easter, the car sellers bring cows to thank me for what I
did for them.

But we created what we called the orientation agency and the agency makes sure
that the projects are sold to the people. For example, they have the local
government photo exhibition, every week they visit a local government to
enlighten them on government projects; those that are ongoing, proposed,
completed etc..., they also take time to educate the people on the benefits of
those projects and they have people to answer questions.

I have 99 per cent support of the people. The problems we have are with those we
call nomadic politicians who do not stay at home. They cannot win a single ward
in the area. Take the recent PDP primaries as example; they could not win any
ward. The people know those who are working for them.

Recently, I handed schools back to the missions, yet the state still pays
salaries of the teachers teaching in those schools. We gave them control just to
enjoy the benefits of quality administration to help our children maintain
quality discipline both in learning and in character but we still pay salaries
of the teachers.

What is your relationship with IBB?

What is wrong with my having relationship with IBB?

The rumour is that you are pairing up for 2011?

I am not pairing anything. Fake people are behind those rumour and fake posters.
As enlightened journalists and Nigerians there are certain questions you don’t
ask because there is what you call common sense.

Let me tell you something, no presidential candidate who has not gone through
primaries will print a poster and put his running mate, it’s only when you
have won the primaries that you will select your running mate; that is one. So
any Nigerian that is familiar with our politics will know that those posters are
fake, they are just trying to tarnish my image and cause fight between me and
President Goodluck Jonathan.

Secondly, have you looked at the quality of the posters printed? Anybody who has
taste for quality will never associate me with such posters. This is my lodge,
for those of you who have been to my personal house can you compare the quality
here, the clothes I wear or even my photograph in the papers, can you associate
me with such substandard quality?

I have been the marketing director of the third largest company in Nigeria,
Inland Group, which is over 100 years old, controlling advertising companies in
the country. That position is meant for expatriates but I was the youngest to
hold it.

Nobody has beaten my record of being the youngest managing director, I have
written books in marketing being read in America, I am one of the gurus in
marketing, I have propounded my own theory through – injury for injury and
benefit for benefit, so nobody can associate me with anything substandard. They
went and put up a billboard with my picture alongside IBB on it, I just laugh.
So those things I don’t even have to answer before you dismiss.

Maybe it is as a result of your rising profile?

God bless you. Let me tell you even the negative news about me brings me
popularity. There is a story that was front page in one of the major newspapers
in this country that I was arrested in London and was with Metropolitan police.
But I was in my father’s house eating pepper soup.

When I sued the paper, they came to lie down and beg that I wanted to close down
the paper. They had to retract it on their front page but it made me popular.
Fortunately, the Sultan of Sokoto was visiting the state during the period in
question and when he heard it he doubted it and had to call the Met police to
confirm but they said the person with that name wasn’t even in London.

The Sultan had to call then President Yar’Adua to inform him that it was not
true and that was how I became close to President Yar’Adua. The president said
they should put a call to me in Imo and I answered him and that was how he asked
NTA to carry the story at the network news that night that it was not true.

That negative news brought me a lot of benefits and even this IBB’s own is
being looked at from a different angle. I am not afraid to confront any big man
because I was born by a war veteran. Even if the president does something not
good today, I will tell him. I don’t fear anything but I support power.

If I am going to run with IBB, Nigerians will know now, why should I sneak in?
When I was supporting Ozichukwu against Nwodo, did I hide it? When I removed
Ogbulafor, did you people not carry it? Can anybody remove Ogbulafor?

I told him to resign in this house he refused and I told him he won’t leave
here without resigning because I have the courage to confront anybody. Anyway
you know those writing those things.