Govs’ forum membership is voluntary –Theodore Orji JUNE 8, 2013 BY JULIET BUMAH 2 COMMENTS Theodore Orji | credits: File copy Abia State Governor Theodore Orji talks about the conflict in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and other issues in this interview with JULIET BUMAH Aba is known as a very dirty city. What has your administration done to remove that tag? I can take you to Aba so that you can see things for yourself. At times when we go out and say it, most people who have not come there don’t believe us. I want to tell you sincerely, from the bottom of my heart that there is a tremendous change in the whole of Abia State and in Aba especially. You know Aba is a popular town in which even non-Nigerians live. This is why whatever happens here vibrates outside Nigeria. That is why the town is sensitive, apart from the fact that it is a commercial centre in this part of the world. So, we are conscious of improving Aba tremendously. In terms of refuse disposal, that is the first thing. Before I came on board, managing refuse was a big problem. The first contract we had was a chartered contract between the Federal Government, an American investor and us to manage our wastes from waste to wealth. That contract was frustrated somehow. But then, we did not fold our arms. We started working on the refuse in Aba. We got dumps and closed the old ones that were not properly sited. There were some dumps along the expressway. The refuse was overflowing to the road, so we had to get dumps that were outside urban areas. We brought in experienced agents who could manage the dumpsites. We also bought compactors and other equipment for their disposal and put them in action. Today, if you pass by those places now, you will never think that the places were dumps. We are managing the refuse very well because that place generates a lot of wastes because of the factories. This has made Aba to be cleaner. Apart from cleanliness, the most important thing in that city is the state of the roads. The roads were terribly bad. Some of them had never been worked on by caterpillars in the last 20 years. Some of them had been completely taken over by refuse. Ukwu Mango Road, for example, had been overgrown by mango trees. When I came on board, that was the first thing they told me. I was told that Aba people would commend me if I did the road and I noted it. I deployed contractors in the road and it took the contractors two weeks – working day and night – to first of all excavate the trees and the refuse. One of the most essential things we did in Aba was the security. The roads were bad and the refuse were there. People still continued doing their businesses. But when this new security came, all of them ran away. Please explain more about the issue of security, because the old Aba bore a similarity to the old Lagos in terms of the activities of touts. How did you handle it? If you go to Aba now, you can hardly see touts. We have reduced touting to the barest minimum. We have brought discipline into the people. To instil discipline in the people, you have to do some things they will appreciate so that they can respect you when you talk to them. If nothing is done in terms of social amenities, you will see that they will continue to lack discipline. Aba is the only place you can compare with Lagos where there is no unemployment. What I’m telling you was stated by the President of the World Bank when the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, brought him to Aba. The man said Aba was a town in which there was no unemployment. This is because everybody in Aba is engaged. It is either you are a trader or you are an artisan. It is either you have your own business or you are an apprentice. Even civil servants we post to Aba to work become traders after work. So, Aba is the only town we can compare to Lagos. You changed the focus of infrastructural development from Aba to Umuahia. Why did you do that? I did not do that. The problem we had before now was that the infrastructural decay in Aba was more than that of Umuahia. In population, Aba has more density. The pressure on the infrastructure was more. That made it to depreciate. Umuahia, though with a good population, is not like that. It is a civil service town. Aba is mainly a traders’ town. Secondly, the topographies of Umuahia and Aba are different. Umuahia has a flat land and the roads last longer than those of Aba. So, when you invest money in Umuahia, the amount invested there cannot be the same as will be invested in Aba. Since I came on board, we have invested more in Aba than Umuahia. For Aba-Owerri Road, the first sum we paid the contractor was N500m to start work on the road. We also made an initial payment of N500m on Aba-Port Harcourt Road. The roads in Umuahia are short but because of the state of the roads, we paid that amount. The total contract sum for Aba-Owerri Road is N1.6bn and N1.8bn for Aba-Port Harcourt Road. If we spend N500m in Umuahia, we will construct five good roads because the land is good and the roads are short. This is why some people said I’m concentrating on Umuahia than Aba. Yes, in terms of roads, we have done more in Umuahia than in Aba. But right now, we have virtually left Umuahia and are concentrating on Aba. We have invested more money in Aba than in Umuahia. Carting away of refuse is something one has to do on daily basis in Aba or there will be an epidemic. In Umuahia, one can manage without doing it for two or three days. So, if one buys about 10 compactors, seven will go to Aba alone naturally. In the same way, if one buys 100 refuse bins, at least 70 will go to Aba. Preference is not given to Umuahia at all. One has to invest more in Aba for people to see. What’s the idea behind bringing Shoprite to Abia? We don’t have a big shopping mall in Aba and Umuahia. Aba may have some established by entrepreneurs there, but not like Shoprite. So, we decided that since Aba has few scattered here and there, we put Shoprite in Umuahia, the state capital. Can you tell us your projection is for what you want the state to look like? I will quit in 2015. What I’m doing is to realise what I’m putting on the ground before then. This is why we have named our projects ‘Legacy projects’. Abia has never had a government house since its creation. When I go outside to other states and see where my colleagues are living, I bemoan myself. If others didn’t build a befitting government house, why can’t I do it? My name will always be remembered as the governor who built a government house for Abia. I’m determined to complete the project before 2015, so that I will be the first occupant. Whoever comes after me will have a comfortable place to stay. We also said Abia deserves a good secretariat that civil servants can work in. It is difficult to coordinate our civil servants in the different places they are scattered. We thought it was good to build a composite secretariat. We started building tall buildings that we have never had in Umuahia. We started with two, we have almost finished one. I believe if I do all that, it will stand by my name. We have a library, an old one at Okpara Avenue, where vehicles are passing regularly and pose a danger to people who come to the library. We went to Umuahia to build an E-library, which is now 70 per cent completed. We looked around our judiciary and noticed that our judges are usually complaining because of the bad state of courtrooms. We realised we needed to take care of the judiciary as well. We are building modern courthouses and renovating old ones in Umuahia. Not only the high courts but also the magistrates’ courts. The health of our people is important to me. We went to the US and visited a medical centre. We saw how it was neatly organised. You don’t need to go for X-ray or MRI in a very far distance. It captured my fancy. I came back and called my personal physician. I told him, ‘that type of thing we saw there must come here’. We started looking for investors and partners. Right now, if you are sick, go to Abia or Umuahia and you can get a good diagnosis with modern diagnostic equipment. Our partners on the project brought in good equipment. They have the ability to link up with their partners in India. The facilities are in Umuahia and Abia State Teaching Hospital. I was told now that they are making good money. Because of that now, we have extended their services to dialysis. We bought six dialysis machines which are being fixed at the moment. On top of this is the ophthalmology department. We are replicating this all the over the states. At the moment, we have 250 functional health centres in Abia. We have also started building a 100-bed hospital in Arochuckwu with money from Sure-P and also in Ohafia, Umuahia, Osisioma, Obingwa East and West local governments. All these are ongoing projects. Some of them have reached roofing stages. There is no sector that we have not touched. Why did PDP governors the break up the Nigeria Governors’ Forum? Nobody engineered anything. That is not correct. You know it is not compulsory you have to be a member of the forum. It is like an age-grade association. Since the NGF started, there has never been an election in choosing who will be the chairman. To come now and insert an obnoxious procedure is what the people are agitating against. Is there no constitution for the forum? I don’t want to go into that constitution issue because there is an allegation that it was doctored. What is causing the crisis now is that all the zones had a consensus. The chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum came the same day to the meeting and announced that all the governors from the North had endorsed (Plataeu State Governor) Jonah Jang as the next chairman. The South-East and South-South did the same. Only the South-West did not do the same because they are not PDP. That was our agreement but when we had our meeting, we heard another thing. We also learnt there was a proper election which you all witnessed. I don’t know where you heard about the proper election. If there was a proper election, this problem would not have come up. Yes, we had a rotational agreement. We agreed on one term each for each zone so that there will be fairness and equity. As of now, the authentic governors’ forum is the one headed by Jonah Jang. He has majority of members. Why have you not reconciled with your predecessor, Orji Uzor Kalu? Let him go and reconcile with Abia people. It has nothing to do with me. I don’t have time for that. I know Aba manufactures a lot of things. Do you wear Aba-made because I can see your Mauri shoes? Yes of course. When we went to Dubai for our ICT project, I was called upon to talk and I told them I’m ‘Aba-made’ because everything I was wearing from head to toe was made in Aba. What I’m putting on now was made in Aba… But the fabric is not made in Aba. I know this is Italian… How do you know it is not made in Aba? There are certain things you see that are made in Aba but you will not know they are made in Aba. This shoe I’m wearing is not Aba-made, but I have many that are made in Aba. You will not even know that they are made in Aba. So, we buy Aba-made products. There is nothing Aba people cannot make. All these Tokunbo vehicles you buy, you can’t get the spare parts of some of them. If one component of the engine is spoilt, just bring it to Aba. They will look at it and ask you to come back. By the time you come back, they will give you one that is fabricated. When you put it in your car, the vehicle will work. But the difference is that if a new one will last one year, the fabricated one will last six months.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:27:35 +0000
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