Nick Opara-Ndudu, a former bank chief, who is also a former Commissioner for Budget & Economic Planning; Works & Transport, as well as Internally Generated Resources (IGR) and Pension Matters in Imo State, says his state has the full potential to become the ‘poster boy’ of South East/South South politics, as he prepares to take a shot at the Governorship position. In this interview, Opara-Ndudu promises to restore the glory of Imo, if given the opportunity, as he laments what he describes as the significant retrogression the state has witnessed in the past seven years. Excerpts:
Are you really satisfied with the state of affairs in Imo as we speak?
I can’t really say one is satisfied, though that there may have been some areas where the governor would have been adjudged to have done well at the beginning. But if you look at the state of affairs in Imo today and you looked at the situation when he came into office, there has been some significant retrogression.
If you look at the state of roads in Owerri, for instance, and the general state of infrastructure in Owerri, as we have it today, it’s far more worse than he met it.
If you look at the medicare system, the hospitals, the hospital system has almost collapsed in Imo State. There is no hospital that you go and say you’ll get good health care. If you look at the education system, the schools, granted that there is so much talk about free education and all that. But we’ve actually witnessed declined standards as far as the output of the educational system is concerned. And it’s not just in Owerri, it’s the same thing in Okigwe and in Orlu. There may have been some attempts at some grandiose projects, but all of them have all collapsed. From the Akachi Towers to the Prince and Princess Hotels etc, they have all collapsed.
Did all these actually inform the choice of your campaign slogan, Imo Will Rise Again?
Yes! If you look at it, you’ll find out that there is a high level of despondency across the state and it’s really unfortunate. We have a governor who came into office at a time the people thought he was the best thing that happened to them. But progressively over the years, because of a lot of anti-people’s policies, he has suddenly become somebody most people do not want to see in the Government House again. If somebody told Imolites that, by 2011, His Excellency Rochas Okorocha would be in the situation he finds himself today, in terms of public rating, people would tell you, it’s a lie. But here we are, he’s done a lot of things to really hurt the people, in all parts of the state, he has destroyed markets. And if you look at Igbo people, generally, our life revolves around commerce and industry, that’s what Igbos are known for. So, if now as a government, the most important thing you think you should accomplish is to destroy existing markets, without even providing alternatives before those destructions. We find ourselves now in a situation where people are being told that alternatives are being built, whereas alternatives should have been provided before the destruction.You destroy a market and you begin to rebuild without any regard for people who were earning their livelihood from such locations. It’s been done in Owerri, in Amaraku, in Orlu and across the entire state.
Let’s take it from the market issue now. One of your campaign promises is to transform Owerri into a business and tourism hub. How do you intend to go about this?
Yes! We have to look at it from the environment .For us to transform Owerri into the kind of business hub we are envisaging, we have to ensure that basic world-class infrastructure are provided. You need to look at the roads, not the kind of roads that we have at the moment.We must first embark on serious rehabilitation of most of the roads in Owerri and provide world-class standard roads, not the ones that will give way in three to six months after construction. And then make sure that the facilities that will support the emergence of Owerri as a tourism hub are provided. Part of our plan is to make sure that Owerri turns into the entertainment capital of the South East and South South. To ensure this and provide security for the people who will be coming in, we have to provide security and world class infrastructure such as a world-class Conference Centre, not the one built by artisans like the ones we have . Thank God that we have Marriot and Protea today in Owerri. We might get into discussions with those outfits to have them build a world-class Convention Centre that will accomodate about 3,000 to 5,000 people at a go as part of their hotels and government will provide all the necessary incentives for them to achieve this.We are going to work with the airlines and revamp the Imo State Tourism Corporation because, for us to achieve this goal, we must make sure that the infrastructure, in terms of the people that manage the entire process are in place. And I believe that the organisation that should be revamped is the Imo State Tourism Corporation to enable it face these
challenges .
Let’s look at your agenda for Imo State, how do you intend to go about this, considering the fact that that you have highlighted about 16 different areas to focus on?
What I have done before coming out with the agenda was to conduct a painstaking sectoral review of entire Imo State and whatever you see in that agenda is implementable. And they will be implemented through the Ministries; because we have abandoned the Ministries in Imo State in the past seven years. We have abandoned the Ministries. Nothing happens in the Ministries,except for the Ministry of Lands and, to an extent, the Ministry of Finance.You’ll find out that most of the other Ministries are operating at less than 10 per cent capacity.So, we must take the responsibility for implementing these programmes as outlined in my agenda back to the Ministries because you cannot actually drive development without the bureaucracy. That is why the Ministries are there.If we find that the Ministries are not doing well, we’ll take steps to ensure that they improve on their performance.We may have to re-organise the Ministries, we may have to bring in new hands, we may have to re-train personnel. But to say that you are going to abandon the Ministries completely in implementing government programmes is to me something taken too far.So, if you look at every bit of the agenda that I have proposed for the state, they fit into the bureaucracy and we’ll have the bureaucracy of the state drive the implementation of the agenda.
Looking at the workings of the Government Ministries vis-a-vis the civil service system, don’t you think that a re-orientation of the civil servants should come first?
If you look at the agenda, it’s there. We’re talking about civil service reform, we talked of establishing a Civil Service School because we need to re-train the staff. Unfortunately, in the past several years, civil servants in Imo State have not gone on trainings or gone for courses.That’s the fact, so, how do you expect them to improve? So, we must necessarily re-train them. I do not believe that every human being is bad or is not good enough.We must give them the opportunity and provide the environment for him to perform. And part of that environment is that you must provide for him the learning opportunities – the training and re-training opportunities – that should go along with the position he’s occupying.I have interacted with civil servants in Imo State and I believe and know that they are very knowledgeable and intelligent. But the fact is that they have been discarded, they are being looked down on; and some people believe that they can’t perform the duties of that office. I disagree! There are graduates in Imo State Civil Service who are as good as the graduates you’ll find in the Lagos State Civil Service and even in Anambra. Yet, we are saying that those in Lagos and Anambra are performing without giving those in Imo the opportunity. Given the right environment and good learning opportunity, the civil servants in Imo State can perform even better than their counterparts in the civil service of other states of the federation.
In which political party are you running?
I’m running on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.
But if there are coalitions, would you consider changing your platform?
I do not think I will like to change my party at this stage.For me, I believe that for the part of the country we come from, we need very strong regional parties., just like the All Progressives Congress and Action Congress of Nigeria provided for the South West of Nigeria.
We need strong regional parties that can articulate the regional agenda.We are not saying Nigeria will not be united, we’ll all be united but let’s have strong regional parties. And it’s in sync with the talk and
clamour for true federalism, restructuring and all that.
If you restructure this country into six or so component groups, the South East will probably be one of the component regions and we need a strong regional party that can drive development with these policies and programmes in the South East of Nigeria and I believe that APGA is well-positioned to do that.
