South-East Gained Nothing From Jonathan – APGA Chair The Chairman, All Progressive Grand Alliance, Lagos State, Mr. Campbell Umeh-Nzekwe, in this interview with ENIOLA AKINKUOTU, speaks about next month’s general elections Has your party adopted President Goodluck Jonathan as its presidential candidate like it did in 2011? We supported him in 2011 and that was how we were able to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party in the South-East because we learnt our lesson from the Olusegun Obasanjo administration when we won all the elections in the South-East but there was some hanky-panky in Abuja and the powers that be declared that we did not win anywhere. Even former governor Peter Obi’s mandate was snatched and given to Senator Chris Nigige, who was in the PDP then until the court returned our mandate. So, we do not want to fight the Presidency again. We are supporting him not because he has done anything meaningful for the South-East. There is no national project in the South-East today. The only one is the Second Niger Bridge which is being built with our own money because we will pay toll. That is the truth. In fact, I challenge anybody to point to a project that Jonathan has done in the region. Even the so- called Onitsha seaport was a dummy. The airport in Enugu was only renovated and tagged an international airport. How many foreign airlines ply the route? But now that you say your party is supporting Jonathan, does it mean that the PDP will concede the entire South-East to APGA? That was the deal we made with him because we had told him from the outset that if he continues to fight APGA, APGA would fight the state PDP and definitely, the APC would take advantage of the situation but if the PDP and APGA have a common agenda that every governorship, House of Representatives and senatorial position in the South-East should go to APGA, then on the presidential level, we would all vote for the PDP. That was the original plan but our brothers in the South-East who are in the PDP are refusing to cooperate with us. They are playing hide-and-seek and are deceiving Jonathan in Abuja that they will win. That is why you can see Peter Obi who resigned as Chairman of the APGA Board of Trustees run to Abuja to become the Deputy Director General of the presidential campaign. This was a governor who never helped APGA win a single senatorial seat in his eight years in power. So, I don’t know the value he will add to Jonathan’s campaign. And I don’t know any election that the Director General of the presidential campaign team, Ahmadu Ali, has won. So, Jonathan is fixing a square peg in a round hole. Has Ndi Igbo also picked Jonathan as their candidate? The Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo group is in a dilemma now. In 2011, they automatically picked Jonathan but this time around, they never thought things would be like this but now the game has changed and they are still strategising to see who they will pick but the reality on the ground today favours Maj.- Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. It is only a blind man that will think otherwise. Why do you say so? The game has changed. As it is, Jonathan has no chance of winning. Buhari seems to have taken over. The PDP has collapsed in the North if you care to know. All those who are running to Aso Rock and making promises to the President are just deceiving him. Jonathan is a sitting President with incumbency factor in his favour but Buhari has the masses and a cult following in the North. In 2011, Buhari won 12 million votes in the North with his ragtag party, the Congress for Progressive Change, without a single governor or senator to campaign for him. Today, his party, the APC, has 14 governors, 43 senators and 176 Reps as well as 625 House of Assembly members. Also, the APC has dominant control of the North-West with a total number of 18.4 million voters and North-East with 10.2 million while South-West has 13.4 million voters. The North sees Buhari as their saviour because they see his candidature as an opportunity for the North to return to power. So, I might not be speaking the mind of my people who have not yet come to terms with the reality. The Igbo and my leaders might not like my position but I am a researcher and I am trying to position my people’s mind instead of them moving about without a compass, thinking that it will be business as usual. The reality has changed. But with what you have said, can APGA even win any election in the South-East? Presently, we are more organised than before. Those that abandoned APGA and defected to the PDP are just joking. They made the wrong choice because I can tell you that APGA will become the next opposition in Nigeria. In school, we learnt the rise and fall of empires. The PDP empire is falling and no man can stop it. So, that is the position now. The party is not strong in the South-East. It is not even strong in Ijaw land. The party was just a contraption of the military when it (military) was handing over power. The party has no root. Political party is a local business that starts from the grass roots that leads all the way up but the PDP starts from the top and that is an aberration. A party is supposed to start from a zone and then grow. You can see how the Alliance for Democracy evolved into the Action Congress and then Action Congress of Nigeria and has now grown to the national level to merge with the Congress for Progress Change and the All Nigeria Peoples Party with a strong northern background. These are parties with roots and will stand the test of time. The PDP has no root. But your party is supporting the PDP’s presidential candidate. My party at the national level still stands by Jonathan but on a personal note, I don’t support his administration in terms of what his government has left undone in the South-East. We have been supporting Jonathan since 2011 but what have we achieved? If Jonathan loses, APGA will rearrange itself. The Igbo received no development apart from a few appointments under Jonathan. We achieved nothing meaningful. We have no refinery in the South-East. The international airport in Enugu was built in 1957 by the colonial masters. It was only renovated recently. Enugu was the coal city and its coal was meant to generate power but nothing is done there again. The Igbo race has no industrialised economy right now. Our oil import and export is like selling palm kernel at N50 per bunch and then buying a bottle of palm oil at N500. He has no plan to set up a refinery but wants us to be importing till thy kingdom come. There is nothing to show that he has a plan to build a refinery and there is also high unemployment. Obviously he has lost direction and should not be contesting. Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of oil in the world and does not have a single functional refinery. We have the same problem with power generation. But the power sector has been privatised. As an engineer I will give you a clear explanation of power. They privatised the distribution of power as well as administration but the problem we have is power generation and if you cannot generate, can you distribute? So, what are they transmitting? They are just playing games with us. The issue is that no country in the world gives generation of power to individual companies. It is being generated by the government all over the world. It is like that in Germany, Brazil and in the United States. It is only transmission of power that is being done by private individuals. So, this government has failed. The power stations, including Kainji and Egbin, were made by the colonial and military governments. In a civilised environment, Jonathan should not be contesting for re-election. Are you saying that Buhari can do better? Buhari has shown leadership by example. We don’t need a microscope to see through him. He has shown integrity and discipline. This is a man that retired as Head of State and has no building in Abuja or Lagos. He has only a storey building in Kaduna. He does not give out money to people. So, already, you know he is not corrupt. He has given a sign of where he is going. He is incorruptible. When the head is good, the body will be good but when the head is rotten, the body cannot be good. So, if they say Buhari’s followers are not good, let us wait and give him a chance. It is the head that will drive the rest of the body. He is the one that will be in charge of appointments. In 2007, Jonathan and former President Yar’Adua met 3,000 megawatts on the ground. In 2014, we are producing only 3,450 megawatts after spending more than $50bn. That is trillions of naira. So Jonathan and Yar’Adua combined could only produce 450 megawatts of electricity. Can we continue with this system? Copyright PUNCH.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 06:02:16 +0000
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