Obiano reveals success secrets of APGA in Anambra State
Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano has given reasons why APGA continues to dominate politicks in Anambra State. Obiano who was also sworn in today for a second term in office also spoke on other sundry issues in this interview with Chidi Nnadi, Editor, Sunday Sun Newspapers.
Excerpts:
By Saturday (today) you are going to have your inauguration for a second term, you have seen politics these past four years; and some people say it is a dirty game, is this assertion true?
It depends on the perceptive you are coming from, if I judge with what happened during my last campaigns, I will say that politics is a dirty game; when people tell lies, when they see the truth, they make white to look black; so if that is what is obtainable in politics then it is a dirty game. But for me, I see politics as a calling for service and I am putting in my best, here I work 24 hours non-stop. I have been very creative on how to help my people and the enterprise that I brought has really pushed the state forward since I came. I came well prepared based on my background and training in Harvard before my retirement; so I came shooting from all cylinders from day one and it was a success.
Anambra APGA has held on to power despite all the efforts made by other political parties to dislodge it in Anambra State, what is the secret?
APGA worked very hard on principles to be where we are today. It wasn’t by fluke, it was a deliberate strategy and efforts; the slogans: “Onye aghala nwanne ya; nka bu nke anyi,” be your brother’s and sister’s keepers; this is our own, are very clear in our manifesto on agriculture, trade and commerce, oil and gas, industrialization and through things that are in the four pillars, through the enablers, health, education and, of course, security is number one, environment, infrastructure, power, youths entrepreneurship, sports development, generating finance and ensuring that you grow your IGR to be independent of the Federal Government and that is where we are headed. I have achieved that to about 82 per cent and in the next four years we will grow our IGR to the extent that the recurrent expenditure can be handled by the state and we will now use the federal allocations for other capital intensive activities.
Your party claims to be a national party, yet every year you people will not field a presidential candidate, how do you look at that?
Well, we are very structured people, we don’t ply by day and go by night, we are very strategic in our thinking and we are not rabble rousers, we don’t just make noise for the sake of making noise. At the appropriate time, when we think that we are matured enough, we will bring out a presidential candidate.
But 2019 is almost here
But I won’t confirm to you with all authority that there won’t be one, but it is not looking likely that there will be, but we are focused on what we are doing. So, if we work hard in the South-east and our kith and kin joining in this moving train, we will get there.
There was a time when some of the members of your party were clamouring for you to come out and fly the presidential ticket of your party
I am not sure that is what I want to do now, I would like to focus on what I am doing now and do it well. God will determine what will follow next. So, the presidency is not on my card for now.
What are your challenges in governing Anambra State?
Resources, I can tell you that. The Federal Government is owing me roughly N50 billion as we speak, the money I put on their roads. When I took over in 2014, 2015 and 2016, I spent so much money fixing three of their major bridges, one is at Nkpor, erosion cut the road into two, and you know it’s a major road linking Anambra, Enugu and other states in the South-east and beyond; then the 3,3 Bridge was almost washed away and I also fixed the bridge; then the Enugu-Onitsha expressway was cut into two at Okija Junction and I also fixed the road; these are very important roads that if they are left like that today, you will find it difficult to get to Imo or any other state that has links with us. So, resources are very critical to what we are doing, we know what we want to do, we have a blue-print. I will use this opportunity to recount to you what we want to do. The first is our vision for Anambra. We want Anambra to be first choice investment destination and a hub for economic and commercial activity. Our mission, why we go to work every day is to create a socially stable business friendly environment where indigenes and non-indigenes alike will have an opportunity for wealth creation. This mission is subsumed into our blue-print and it is from that blue-print that we pulled out our four pillars of agriculture, oil and gas, trade and commerce; industrialization and the 12 enablers; security, education, health, infrastructure, power, youth entrepreneurship, children welfare and what have you, 12 of them. That encapsulates what we are doing, so we are very clear. And we have done well in Anambra State, paid salaries when the other people are not paying salaries. By the way, you know that I didn’t take the bailout fund; your state, Imo, took two times or more.
So why didn’t you take?
Because we don’t need it, if the Federal Government had paid me the money they were owing me then, N43.8 billion that would have gone a long way. I also moved the IGR of the state when I came in 2014 from N350 million or there about to N1.7 billion that we are enjoying now and our target is to be at N3 billion, we can achieve that. I have just done some restructuring at the Board of Internal Revenue and the restructuring will go a long way in helping us to actualize those things. We have also done very well in agriculture, particularly in rice production. When I came in 2014, Anambra was producing 80,000 metric tons of rice, but today we are doing 345,000 metric tons and Anambra consumes about 320 metric tons, that is, the people living in the state, so we are already on the surplus end. Our target is that by the end of December this year we will achieve 600,000 metric tons. You can also see that before I came Anambra State had no rice, but today we have three types of rice from the state. The one from Coscharis Farm, the one by Josan Agro and the other by Bastin Millers, they are all Anambra rice. If you eat rice here, it is Anambra rice and the beef you will be eating here is the local cow, Igbo cow. And this year, we are going to give the farmers some money to grow their stock and cross-breed; what they are getting from Chile will give us three times the “efi Igbo” you are seeing here; we have experimented that and it is working.
What is going to be your priority area in the next four years?
First is to institutionalise our success. What are those successes? Before we came there was virtually no structure except the civil service. It was when I came that I started creating institutions that will live after me and ANSIPA, Anambra State Investment and Protection Agency, a one-stop shop outfit for investors; if you come the panel will assess you to know if you are serious and in less than two weeks you will get your C of O and we give you another nine to 12 months to really take off; if we wait for 18 months and you have not started we recover the land from you. Our system here is that we don’t sell land, we value land commercially and use it as equity in the business you are investing here. That is one way we have been funding some of the activities we have been doing. And they ask, how come you are paying salaries, you are doing well in agriculture, you are doing infrastructure, where are you getting the money; most of them are Private Public Partnership and we are managing the resources, we are doing more with less, that is the slogan here and the people bought into it and we are doing well. So, in the next four years, apart from making sure that the institutions that will live after me are there like Anambra Small Businesses Agency that is involved in the disbursement of low facilities to farmers and other entrepreneurs, and ACDA, Greater Onitsha Development Authority, which is in the house for approval; Greater Nnewi Development Authority; all these authorities or agencies as the case may be will strengthen the management of the cities in the psyche of our people. We used to be farmers until all kinds of things came and we moved out. When I say farming they include animal husbandry, fishery, rice production, cassava, maze and wherever. So, we want to bring that consciousness so that every household, even in your house you plant vegetables instead of interlocking the whole of the place. I will also like to let you know that we are trying to do much in trade and commerce. Hopefully, if we complete the Anambra Airport which we hope to before I leave office, the Inland Port that we are doing in Ozubulu and other places. We want Anambra to be a place you will come and do business, where you come to relax and that will grow the economy of this state. In the last four years we have grown the economy to the tune of N1 trillion and we are the only state in the South-east that didn’t see recession while Nigeria as a country moved by -1.5 per cent in 2016/17 and Anambra was one per cent on top. Before we used to be four, five per cent above Nigeria from 2014/15 GDP. Then oil and gas is critical and we have not invested in Oil and Gas yet as a state, but its activities are very important for job creation, generation of IGR, so we are focusing on that; getting the infrastructure that will help to actualize that. I am building the longest road in the South-east, 47 kilometres and have finished the longest bridge on the same road, the 280 kilometres Ezu Road. I am also trying to complete the bridge at Umuede after completing that of Oyi-Ora. I have also created a loop in the North which is the growth area in Anambra State; it is in the North that we have the gas deposit at Igboariam and Anyamelum, it is also in the North that you have the virgin areas for agriculture, not as occupied like in the Central and the South areas; it’s also in the North that we have the oil wells. So, what we are trying to do with the foresight that we have when these outfits start generating revenue using the infrastructure that we have created, future administrations in this state will be like Lagos State and would not bother whether they are getting external funding or not. And, of course, our people in Nnewi are doing very well in the industrialization of the state; I was talking with the power minister, Babatunde Fashola, we are trying to get dedicated power for Nnewi for that environment to have 24 hours power supply which will go a long way in helping industries that are currently relying on diesel. We are also looking at rail lines to run from the airport to the other cities to see if we can compel Alhaji Aliko Dangote to use those rails so also other big trucks that are spoiling our roads.
What legacy would you like to leave behind at the completion of your second term in office?
The first legacy is to enshrine transparency in the state and I want to be seen as a governor that came, saw and conquered. I want to be remembered as a governor that came and brought security of lives and property to our people, which is happening already; I want to be seen as a governor that came and built some identifiable things that you can readily point at like the International Conference Centre that we are building now, by the time we finish it, it will be the best in the South-east just like the three flyovers that we constructed, how many states in the South-east have these kinds of projects? I want to be seen as a guy who came and improved on the standard of education, all APGA governments pay attention to education, my predecessor did well in that area and I built on it, and subsequent APGA governments that will come after me will build on top of what we did.
Courtsy The Sun
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