I’ll move seat of government to Aba – Udensi Chikwe Udensi, a security consultant and politician, is the General Secretary of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON). He is an Abia State governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this interview with ASSISTANT EDITOR, JOE NWANKWO, in Abuja, he bares his mind on politics in Abia and other issues. Excerpts … Chikwe Udensi You are running for the governorship of Abia state and, as it is, the ruling PDP has zoned it to the Akwanga axis and you are not from that zone. What are your chances? I am not in PDP; I am in APGA, and APGA has also zoned their governorship to Abia North. The first zoning we had was to Abia North which was Onwuka Kalu that went for it. The second one was Abia Central for which our brother, Omekannaya Okpala, came forward. The third one went to Ukwa-Ngwa and Raymond Ufomba was the candidate. Now, they have come back to Abia North. That is the orientation we have in APGA, and it has been consistent. You have been talking about change. What is that change? The acronym for change is not from here; everybody wants a change in Abia. The Mechanics, the artisans, drivers, market women, civil servants, Nigerian Bar Association, everybody in Abia wants change. We have a rough time in Abia. What we have in Abia is unfortunate, so everybody is clamoring for a change that is positive. Do you have a particular area where you think that this change should be brought to? It should be in the leadership of Abia State. The governorship in Abia State is unfortunate and we are asking for change. Apart from that, the zoning you talked about, a lot of people are saying it is not a matter of party but because of natural justice that the people of Ukwa-Ngwa should be allowed to take a shot at the governorship in the spirit of equity and justice, how do you react to that? You see this clamour for who to become governor of Abia commenced in 1999, do not forget. Since then we have had four elections, what we are going to now is the fifth one. Whose turn was it at the first election? Whose turn was it at the second one? Whose turn was it at the third and fourth? Everybody contested it, every zone contested for it. In fact, the Ukwa-Ngwa zone you are talking about had more contestants than anybody else. Moreover, I am one of those people who believe in equity and fairness. It is our turn, we have not produced, our people have not produced the governor of Abia State. Ukwa-Ngwa has produced through their man in Obingwa, they have produced through their man in the north Central, Abia North has not produced. I don’t want to expatiate on that. If you go and investigate, you will find out where they come from, people have been talking about it. We are Igbos, we answer our father’s name, we do not answer our mother’s name so you can go and find out who has taken their turns. Abia North has not taken their turn and we are waiting to take our turn. What do you intend to achieve if you get into office? In the first instance, you need to find out what comes to the state and then, compare it to what they are doing on ground. By virtue of my office as the Secretary – General of ALGON, which constitutes the 774 local governments in Nigeria. I sit on Federation Allocation Committee (FAC) although as an observer, we don’t have voting rights there. We see what happens every time we share money for the past 48 months to 68 months, Abia has consistently made over N4billion every month. This is what comes to the state, it does not include what comes to the local governments, it does not include intervention funds nor excess crude. It does not include ecological funds or even from donor agencies. If you add all these monies together and compare it to the wage bill of Abia, you will find out that we are in hell in Abia. What is happening in Abia is pathetic and deserves change. Have you gone to Abia. Have you seen what the situations of the roads are in Aba? Compare it to what comes into the state. Is there anywhere in Abia that construction is going on? And also we are being told that civil servants are owed up to six months’ salary, I hosted the National Civil Service Union in my house in Arochukwu not too long ago, they said they have being owed for five months. If you are not paying salaries, no construction is going on and you are not even paying the salaries that ordinarily should be taken for granted. Where are all the monies going into? That is why everybody is clamouring for change. Those we have in Abia has no mission, no vision and no direction, that is why everybody is clamouring for change and I am the face of that change. At the end of the day, what is it that you will say you are trying to change? As governor of Abia State, I will move my seat of government from Umuahia to Aba for the first two years. When I say these things, it will hurt some nerves and step on some toes but I am determined to do it, and that is what I will do. Aba deserves massive infrastructural development. That is my first area of focus, because Aba is a commercial North-Central of the Igbo man not even Abia State. So, my first area of focus is Aba. The infrastructure will be put in place. I will also put up the enabling environment and the commissionalities for good commerce, that is what our people do, that is where we make our income. That is where we give the state government enormous revenue base in the area of infrastructural development of Aba and putting in place the instrumentality of commerce. That is the first thing I will do. And that area of interest which I want to make sure I harness is the area of education. Education is what puts the son of both the rich man and the poor man on the high table. Education is what makes you comfortable and gives you confidence. Education is the pivot on which all the developmental activities in society revolve. Therefore as the governor of Abia state, I will ensure free and qualitative education because if you check what is paid, I have considered that about 440 million is being generated annually as school fees. That is a fraction of what the governor takes as security votes. This is misplaced application of funds. It is wrong application and proper mis- management of funds. Let us put these monies to where they are required; in the education, health- care, social services. Under my watch as the Governor of abia state, you will not find one mad man on the streets of abia state. Madness debases humanity. Go to every community, you will see mad people naked on the streets. We have enough resources to make sure that madness gets its attention in the psychiatric hospitals which must exist. Madness is a sickness that can be treated. How do you fund it? Because for every program I have, I have a revenue base. Go around the world… you also know that when the missionaries were coming here, they were building schools, they were building hospitals. Today, the missionaries that we have are self aggrandizing missionaries, they wear Italian shoes, drive the best of cars fly private airlines; under my watch in Abia state, I will not legislate the worship of God, but once you come to the public forum, there are rules. Things will not happen the way they happen today. What we are going to do is that we are going to set up what is called the charity commission which happens around the world. The job of the charity commission is to ensure that the areas of motherless homes, Cheshire homes, catastrophic health plan systems of the ministry of health and psychiatric hospitals are taken care of from the charity commission. Where does the commission get their funds? From the tax and offices, when you pay it, a percentage of it goes to the charity organizations.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 02:57:23 +0000
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