A former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, SAN, is the Labour Party candidate in the September 21 governorship election in Edo State. In this interview, Akpata shares his thoughts on his preparation for the forthcoming poll, among other issues. Excerpts:
Why do you want to be the governor of Edo State?
I will use one Benin parable which says that “if there is only one wealthy person in a family, then we are all poor” to illustrate and show why I want to be governor.
For me, my motivation is simply to see that more people are pulled out of poverty and that a lot of people are empowered in Edo State.
I joined the Labour Party because, if you look at the logo, you will see papa, mama and pikin. People should be at the centre of governance, at the center of policy.
But in Nigeria today, you can see that people have been removed from the equation and it is in our interest to take a keen interest in what is going on, because we saw protests around the country a few days ago. That will tell you that we’re sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Just one match stick, this country will blow up, so there is the need to improve the welfare of our people.
As it is now, garri is almost one hundred thousand Naira a bag. We’re saying all these things and it looks like a joke. Things are hard. We all live in Nigeria. I live in Nigeria and I feel all these things as well.
That is why I’m here, I have been a lawyer for31 years. I have been President of the bar. We have to leave our comfort zone if we still want to have a country, if we still want to have a country we can comfortably live in. I don’t want to run away, I don’t want to japa, and that is why I’m in politics.
As someone who has been in the private sector for a long time, what will you do differently if elected?
The first thing is that I will put people at the centre of governance. People are no longer at the centre of governance and I will restore that. How do you know the government that is running properly? You check its programmes and policies and see the one that has the greatest interest of the people through its policy executions.
So, what do I want to do differently? Edo today earns N17 billion a month and the question is what have we done with this? It should be used for the people; to provide a good life for the people and make things easy for them through your programmes and policies, and also to look at them as the people you should focus on.
Let me give you one example of what the Edo State government is doing today that is abysmal.
The state government pulled down a hospital to build a museum. Then you ask yourself, what purpose is that action when there is the need for more healthcare facilities?
I will instead build more hospitals, if it were to be me. As the governor, I will build more health facilities. As a governor, one must understand that it is not your money that you are spending. You are just a caretaker. You are holding a brief for the people.
So the allocation of this money must consider what will benefit the greater number of the people. I personally will do what the people need, I’ll be transparent and I’ll be accountable. Government is not rocket science, although some people will say, Olu, you have never been in government before. But, I’ve been managing a large number of people and resources. I’ve run a law firm with 120 people. I’ve run an association, the Nigerian Bar Association, with 128 branches all over the country.
I ran all of our programmes and events at NBA and I managed everything successfully, and left N1.5 billion in the account of the association when I walked away. So I have successfully managed men and resources. One thing is that if you are intent on providing good governance for the people, you will do it. It’s all about desire and will power.
“For ballot box snatching and rigging, know one thing, to rig against a popular candidate is always very hard. To rig in a place where a candidate is very popular, is hard”
How are you going to leverage the agricultural potential of the state to ensure people are pulled out of poverty?
We have a great potential in agriculture in Edo State that hasn’t impacted the people. One thing is that agriculture is long-term unlike oil which once you dig in your backyard you see the product and run along with it.
The thing is that the impact of agriculture in any economy cannot be overestimated and if we understand this, we won’t be paying lip service to the agric sector. We will organise a revolution in that sector.
We can easily remember certain policies of the government like Operation Feed the Nation and The Green Revolution, among others. It’s just that we didn’t sustain those programmes. See what Governor (Chukwuma) Soludo of Anambra State launched recently in Awka – Farm to Feed Programme – and that is very commendable. We will reignite a revolution in the agricultural sector.
And how will we do that? Number one, the government must be the off-taker (of all agricultural produce). We’ll supplement farm implements… we’ll supplement pesticides. Government has money to do all those things and give them at highly subsidized prices. We’ll create farm settlements and establish programmes that will enhance the development of the sector through several interventions. We must be heavily involved. We’ll establish storage facilities and the farm settlements in each local government. In fact, we’ll establish as many farm settlements as we can. That will be the pilot project. So these farm settlements will have storage facilities. And the other side of this is that we will integrate agro-allied processing, like from pineapple to pineapple juice etcetera there and then. As a farmer it’s either you’re collecting your agro products to go sell, or you’re moving to the processing plant.
Meanwhile, the farmer himself would have collected his money and gone back to the farm. Today, garri is almost N100, 000 per bag because farmers aren’t going to the farm any longer. So, we’ll secure them by bringing in security because of the activities of all these herdsmen.
The other day in Ondo, about three or four herdsmen were sentenced to death. And this is because there must be accountability and there must be sanction. We’ll secure our farmers, forest rangers will come back. Can someone attack Warri Refinery now? No, because the state is protecting it. For us, the farms will be state assets that must be heavily secured. We’ll secure the farms, both the ones the state will run and the ones run by farmers.
The storage facilities will not be run alone by the government. It will be run on PPP (Public Private Sector Partnership); the agro-allied processing zones will also be run on PPP basis because the government will be earning income from them but won’t run them alone.
I’m not a fan of government running businesses alone. So, once we see that we have ignited the agricultural sector, what will it do? Number one, we have improved the economy of the farmer; number two, we would have stemmed the rural-urban migration. Number three, we are feeding ourselves as a state. And number four, we’re providing multiple jobs. Look at the establishments (value chain) that I’ve just mentioned – storage, farms, processing zones – jobs will be provided and the young people in villages won’t have the burden of running to Benin City. So, these are my plans for the agricultural sector of the state, and it’s something we’re going to follow through to the end.
What are you going to do strongly to deepen development and make people stay in rural areas, given the crave for migration to cities?
First and foremost, rural-urban migration is because there’s no viable economic development in those areas but the agriculture we just spoke about is one of the ways to tackle that. That is number one, because it would fire up the economy of those areas. Number two, the government is supposed to provide facilities in rural areas, and roads come first, and then drainages and other things that aid living. You’ll find out that with such, people will even go and live there. Through that, you as a government are spreading out.
Take a place like Abudu for instance. There’s been no light there in the past 10 years and this is a local government headquarters (Orhionmwon Local Government of the state).
How do you expect the people from that area not to run away from such a place? But, if they happen to have light there today and if the roads are good, people will be settled and they will travel to Benin and come back that same day.
So, you have to build infrastructure but you also have to build a viable economy. When the industries are coming, like in my village… We have the largest inland gas deposit in Nigeria. Why are there no companies or power plants given that the best fuel to generate power is gas?
By the time you put a power plant in Orhionmwon Local Government, the people will stay there. What are they coming to Benin City to do? We will stem rural-Urban migration with agriculture and infrastructural development.
For me, we’ll sustain development through industrialising the rural areas. We effectively have that as part of our plans.
What is your policy thrust on women and children, and how will you leverage technology to achieve all these lofty programmes?
For women and children, I grew up as an only son and I understand the import of this. First of all, I strongly believe in gender equality. For people like me that grew up with women, I don’t really know what they are suffering from outside like discrimination.
When I was president of the NBA, I came up with a law for women because I didn’t realize what women lawyers were suffering in the course of their work. I was gender-blind and I believed then that what a man can do, a woman can also do but it is not exactly like that.
Now I have become sensitive to the plight of women and the situation is not balanced at all. So, there must be affirmative action on this and in my government and as a matter of policy, we’ll have a good representation of women. We’re not going to limit ourselves at the 35 percent quota, but women are going to be heavily involved in my government. We’ll take affirmative action to balance the ground that is not level in this regard. Not only in terms of integrating them in government, we’ll empower women in business with finances.
Abia State just brought out about N1 billion credit facilities for market women. We’ll make sure that market women have access to credit and this is one thing we’re going to follow to the latter.
Do you know how many people depend on those market women for their daily living? That is why I have their interest at heart to make sure they’re further empowered through credit facilities.
For children, you know we earlier talked about education. Children will be at the centre of our programmes. We’ll make sure that we provide quality education, quality healthcare that will cater for children, because it’s their right to be educated and protected. We also have to look at our value system which has been eroded. What are the children learning? My government must closely look at schools, churches, traditional institutions and families so that we can put our value system back, because it’s the community that raises a child.
Children today believe that anywhere you see money, go and collect it because that is the value they are hearing. We must change that because they are the leaders of tomorrow, we have to protect them. So the value system will be more important to my administration. For technology, we’re going to make an impact in this regard; we’re going to facilitate programmes to integrate technology fully in our educational systems. Some of our students haven’t effectively used computers, but they are in the computer science department in schools. So for technology, it is like the oxygen we breathe. Technology has become a culture worldwide, and here in Edo, we’ll make sure it also becomes our culture.
“My message to Edo people is to forget about tribe and go for competence. They’re all looking for their own people to be in power just for that”
How confident are you of victory at the poll given recent attacks on you, coupled with hooliganism in Nigeria?
There’s a popular adage that says only a tree that has ripe fruits is attacked. I’ve been on this matter for more than one year and it’s not now that I’ll back out. I’m not going anywhere. Ask yourself, when you go to Edo today and mention the forthcoming governorship election, what name readily comes to people’s mind? So, I’ve already positioned myself. For the attacks, it has been there and it’s meant to intimidate me, but that won’t work as we’re already there. So, there’s no shaking.
For ballot box snatching and rigging, know one thing, to rig against a popular candidate is always very hard. To rig in a place where a candidate is very popular, is hard.
On the other hand, for a candidate to rig where he’s not very popular will be very hard for him. Rigging in itself is no longer possible, but violence is the issue.
I’m happy that the People’s Democratic Party will not want the All Progressives Congress to come and take over the state they’re in charge of and APC, as a ruling party at the centre, will want to take over Edo State and at the end of the day, they will cancel themselves out.
At the end of the day, they will stand down and if the will of the people will prevail, that will be fine.
Also, you’re from the same senatorial zone with the incumbent governor, will this not hinder your chances of victory?
On the issue of zoning, yes the current governor is a Bini man like me, but we should understand that you don’t plan zoning from one party to another.
PDP is where the current governor belongs to and he is a Bini man and I’m in the Labour Party. We held our primaries and decided to open it up for every one irrespective of the senatorial zone.
Our own policy and approach is different. We’re just coming and at our primary, we didn’t restrict the ticket to any zone at all. There were many Esan men in that contest and also there were many Etsako aspirants there, and the Labour Party said if eventually we win the governorship as we hopefully will, then we can reset our own clock for zoning.
You cannot work in Leventis and collect a salary in another company. Every party has their own zoning and how does that affect me with the generality of the people?
Politics is about the number to me and you must have the number to be able to go through.
Adams Oshiomhole said he didn’t run as governor on zoning. He ran as an Etsako person and went to Benin and other areas, convinced the people that he was the better candidate, and was eventually elected.
You know that the two other candidates of the PDP and APC are of the Edo Central and if they convince the Edo South which has about 57 percent of the voting population that they’re the better candidates, congratulations to them. But, I’m yet to see how that will work. I’m a Bini man and in the Labour Party, the zoning has nothing to do with the Labour Party.
Let me speak about tribes. Development or underdevelopment doesn’t know tribes. Tribal sentiment has been the issue in Nigeria, and those calling for this are all looking for their own people to be in power.
My message to Edo people is to forget about tribe and go for competence. They’re all looking for their own people to be in power just for that. Go and drive around Uromi today, the Benin-Auchi Road… Ekpoma, and see how deplorable the roads are.
By the grace of God, we will ensure an egalitarian society where facilities are distributed around the state because the people will be at the center of everything we plan to do as a government.
