Orji: Why Ebonyi Ranks Among Least Indebted States

Governor Dave Umahi has already declared his interest to run for president in 2023. One of the several advantages he is carrying like a chip on his shoulder is a recent report by BudetIT adjudging it among the least indebted states in the country as well as the leading state that has committed over 70 per cent of its revenue to capital projects. In this encounter with Ugo Aliogo, the state commissioner for Information, Barr. Uchenna Orji explains how Umahi’s vision and leadership style are transforming the state

BudgetIT in a recent report singled out Ebonyi State and a few other states as the states that have been very prudent in the management of their resources. The BudgetIT report also stated that those States have concentrated 70 per cent of their revenue on developmental projects as well as being the least indebted states in the country. Given that Ebonyi State collects the least allocation how has it been able to turn around things, achieving so much work while getting so little from the federation account?

I attribute these achievements to the passion, innovative ingenuity, and leadership quality of Governor David Umahi. I want to say that professionalism including passion is what has made the difference. The leadership style of the governor has made him detest anything wasteful. He has zero tolerance for corruption. The governor inspects and supervises projects himself, so monitoring and evaluation are very important. He also ensures quality assurance and due process for projects. He also ensures prudent allocations of scarce resources. Since he came on board, we have been prioritizing investments in capital projects against recurrent expenditures, and this has helped our state in attaining the level of achievements we have today. This came to the fore in the reports by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, (NBS), Debt Management Office (DBO), and other organizations, when the States of the federation were compared by fiscal responsibilities, performance, and budget index, out of the 36 states,

The budget office came up with a budget index and out of the 36 states of the federation, in the area of sustainability and self-reliance or the ability of states to be on their own, Ebonyi state was placed the fourth position in the country (that is viability and self-reliance). In the area of investment in capital projects, Ebonyi State came first, while in the area of transparency, accountability, and prudent allocation of scarce resources, the state also came first. While in overall performance, taking into account all the indices, the state took the second position among the states of the federation.

When the budget office looked at the debt profile of every state, in the entire South-east, Ebonyi State was the least indebted State standing at number 33 in the entire 36 States of the federation. All of these indicators are counting in favour of the administration of our dear governor. This shows that the governor is a man of great leadership ability, who knows how to achieve much with little resources.

We are going into 2023 and there is still some more work to be done. The Governor has declared interest in contesting for the presidency. Is he in a position to complete all his projects because he promised that he will complete all his projects before handing them over in 2023? What is the current state of the projects as we speak?

The projects are ongoing, especially for those that have not been completed, and the governor has been speedily investing to ensure that they are completed before he leaves office. The governor has not been known to have records of uncompleted projects before. If you check the records from 2015 till date, there is no record of uncompleted projects. The governor believes in continuity, all the projects that were left uncompleted by the previous administration. He came and continued with them. Some of them include the International Market, Centenary City, (New Secretariat), and other projects. We believe that given what the governor has done in the last six years, even the Midas touch that he has, he will complete the project. He has said that even if he will be campaigning and moving from one place to another, it will never deter the level of passion and commitment he has for completing all the ongoing projects.

You may be surprised that he is doing more projects, including a 5km internal road per local government area in the 13 councils. But let me assure you that with his supervision, and the lieutenants who are working day and night, and his ingenuity he will deliver; you know he monitors from everywhere. Every time he is on his phone connecting with his lieutenants monitoring what is going on, you can be rest assured that he will fulfill his promises, but the government is a continuum, our prayer is that let him have a successor that can continue from where he would stop in 2023.

Do you foresee the governor preparing a successor before he leaves because it has been established that some governors anointed by their predecessors are hardly on talking terms today? Remember you talked about continuity, do you see the governor looking ahead to prepare a successor? Look at what happened in Akwa Ibom State, the governor has already anointed someone to ensure that his legacy is not destroyed when he leaves. Do you foresee that happening in Ebonyi State?

In Ebonyi State, the governor believes that God determines who will succeed him, so it is going to be the making of God through the governor with the stakeholders. So what he has done is to set a mechanism for getting to know who will succeed him, and the mechanism in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, such as the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN Ebonyi State Chapter), Traditional rulers, and all relevant stakeholders to ensure that they will choose from the right zone, and they will choose the right person. As a matter of fact, everyone who has seen the wonderful work of the governor in this last six years, will not expect anything less from whoever is going to succeed him, so there must be a kind of parameter or yardstick for determining, who will succeed the governor. The person must have a level of ability and passion.

There must be a manifest commitment of the person, seen in his track record showing that he can do more much than the governor has done. So what the governor has done is to say that he must abide by the charter of equity that is the principle of zoning in Ebonyi State. Following that charter, the South is currently holding the position. He believes that his successor should come either from the Central or North senatorial zone. But it is the people who will eventually decide. His ideal is that we should not have to argue over who becomes the governor, that we should be looking at the track records, but in doing that, we should know that equity also counts. Equity is nation-building; it will bring about confidence, and unity in the state. This is why he said that he will not be in a haste to work out the process of who will succeed him, that it will naturally occur through consensus or majority opinion of who becomes governor and which zone the person would emerge.

You mentioned the charter of equity, a lot of people feel that the charter of equity that the founding members of Ebonyi State formulated is dead and no longer applies. But here you are referring to it as one of the guiding principles to choose who succeeds the governor; I am surprised that it is one of the things that you people consider paramount in guiding the state forward.

We hold the charter of equity, even though not written, as a moral principle that will bring about unity and oneness, and confidence. So the North has gone for eight years, the Central has gone for eight years, and apparently, the South is on the saddle. The governor believes that it is equitable that it should go back to either north or central. But the people will decide because, in the creation of Ebonyi State, we have the part that came from Enugu, those are the two zones of North and Central, and then the part that came from Abia that is the Southern zone. We believe that through this equitable rotation of the governorship position, three zones will have to obey the principles of zoning, and allow harmony to exist among the three zones. It is the intention of this administration that they should be equality of representation as far as the governorship seat is concerned. At every point in time, one zone will have to occupy the position; we believe that in that way, it will bring about peace and harmony in the state.

There are two Ebonyians vying for the Presidency. The governor is in the All Progressives Congress (APC), the former Senate President and the ex-Secretary to Government of the Federation is in the PDP. How are you working to create some harmony because you are not looking for a governor? This is the presidency which is something that head or tail, whoever wins brings glory to your state and to the Southeast especially. So how do you look at the political dynamics in this race?

Well, APC has its modus operandi, in terms of getting to know who will become the president, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and has its own modus operandi. Our idea is that in 2023, by God’s grace and the will of the masses and the Nigeria population, it will be zoned to the South-east to present the President, we aim to give Nigeria’s populace the best because over the years, the South-east has not had the opportunity to produce the President, and part of the reason is because of fear and lack of confidence. We need someone who has gotten the track records. We need someone who can unite this country. Someone who is a bridge-builder and who has shown a track record of performance in the position he has occupied before or in the current position he is occupying.

We also need someone who has zero-tolerance for corruption. We also need someone who has the energy and zeal. In some quarters, some people have opined that if you are 60 years and above, you should give an opportunity to those who are below 60 years to occupy the position. A lot of people have also said that anyone who is in any way connected with anything corruption or corruption burden, especially with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), should first go and sort he/herself out before going to tell Nigerians that he/she wants to run for public office. So these are things that we feel that the South-east should be very mindful of. We need to present the best person that will not disappoint Nigeria and the person that will make a good impact. It is often said that the test of the pudding is in the eating. We have seen what those from the South-east who were given positions at the national level have done; we feel that it is up to the Nigerian people to decide. But everyone is destined to run, but we believe strongly that when the time comes, the people will choose the person that will not disappoint them. The person that will not be looking at amassing wealth, but developing the country. The candidate will be looking at uniting the people of Nigeria despite the ethnic differences. So the fact that two are contesting, is because God has made it for them to come from different political parties. Also, they have their own track records which are in the public domain, we cannot comment about that, but for us in Ebonyi State, the governor has no equal because we have seen people who have occupied positions from Ebonyi state, nobody has such track record the way he has. Some believe that he is a candidate to beat and can make a great difference if he has the opportunity and that is the type of leader that Nigerians want at this point in time.

Recently, there were complaints that one of the operatives of the Ebube agwu was beheaded. Does this amount to the breakdown of law and order?

Well, almost everywhere in Nigeria is having the problem of insecurity. It is one of those eventualities especially when we begin to have the activities of non-state actors and unknown gunmen. So all we need is to continue to engage the non-state actors, traditional rulers, and religious leaders, to see how they can talk to our brothers and sisters who are into these nefarious activities. It is one of those eventualities that will occur to an official of a security outfit, whether civilian or conventional security outfit. We are doing our best to ensure that it doesn’t recur. We are not referring to any party, all we are saying is that the individuals that are involved in all these acts of banditry and killing, and destruction of property should be apprehended and made to face the full wrath of the law.

Recently, the deputy speaker raised an alarm, accusing the governor and others of arm twisting him and using ebube agwu to threaten his life. One of the things that people were complaining about was the issue of State Police and outfits like this because they said they were going to be used by the governors of the respective states as militias. Is this accusation not founded given what the deputy speaker is claiming?

I am just concerned that whoever feels that his people have rejected him or her as a representative, the person will begin to lay an accusing finger on the government. Rt Hon. Odefa Obasi Odefa has been one of the major stakeholders in Ebonyi State, working with the Ebonyi state government, we love him and he has been making some contributions. He also joined us by defecting to the APC, but the moment he felt that the opposition promised to make him deputy governor in the next dispensation, he decided to resign as a deputy speaker in Ebonyi State House of Assembly. By implication, he showed no interest in continuing as a member of the House, and so according to section 109 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended: “In circumstance whereby you belong to a political party, and you decide not to continue with that party, the house has the power to declare your seat vacant”. This section has been invoked in the case of Odefa Obasi Odefa. But I can assure you that if he is alleging anything against the Ebonyi State government, it is in bad faith, nobody is after him, he has been working with this government and he knows that we don’t chase anybody. It must be recalled that in 2019, we had very stiff opposition, and that was APC and they didn’t complain of chasing them away even when the governor was going for a second term. He never did. Everyone knows that the governor after the election forms a government that is inclusive, that was why when he was in PDP, he was working strongly and collaboratively with the party at the center which is APC. Let alone someone who has been working with him up till recently. So they are on their own, but we want to assure them that there is no amount of blackmail, castigation, or falsehood that will distract the governor because he is focused. Nigerians have seen what he has done as a governor, and I want to say that with the prayers of men and women of goodwill, God will raise him higher in order to replicate what he did in Ebonyi State in the rest of the country.

There is this scourge of Mkpuru Mmiri. It is a particular hard drug that is ravaging youths, especially in the Southeast. There are reports that it is very prevalent in your State, what is the government doing to ensure that the youths are not destroyed by this hard drug that is being peddled by drug barons across the country today?

Intensive sensitization programmes are ongoing especially with the state government working collaboratively with National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and other agencies to sensitize the people. A lot of work is being done to get those unrepentant drug peddlers either arrested or surrender what they have to security agencies. Therefore, it is all about sensitization which we are doing through the churches, town union leaders, and traditional leaders. Again, Ebube agwu is also empowered to track down such persons through information and intel gathering and such persons are to be reported to Police and other security agencies wherever they are found. I believe that with all of these, the menace of mkpuru mmiri will be reduced in Ebonyi state.

The five engineers who disappeared, is there any news about their whereabouts?

I will not want to comment on this matter because the State government has taken a position on the matter which I made public through our press release and I want to assure you that, that has remained the position. I can only say that in no distant time, security agencies especially the Police, will make public the findings or investigations about what happened to these five engineers who disappeared. But it needs to be emphasized that the Ebonyi state government has done everything within its reach to tackle that situation and by the grace of God, the position of Ebonyi State has remained the same: that these people strayed into the hands of criminal elements and that was the cause of their disappearance. If security agencies make their findings available we will get more information about the location, the suspects, and the whereabouts of the five engineers who were unfortunately killed. Let it be known that it is not only in Ebonyi State that you have security challenges, and so it should not be politicized. No matter the emotions, we should remember the conditions in Nigeria, these are eventualities that happen from time to time. But in Ebonyi State, I must continue to say that our case is different because for instance, if you go to Ebonyi State on Monday(tomorrow), you will see that people are going about their normal business because of the level of engagement that the governor has had with stakeholders including non-state actors and the level of sensitization. I know that the people of Ebonyi State are people of honour and integrity, they believe that the governor has done tremendously well, and the only way to encourage him is to ensure that the place is peaceful. We are beginning to see the outcome and this is to say that the state is much more peaceful than other neighboring States.

‘Why Ebonyi Ranks Among Least Indebted States’