Former Deputy Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly and Governorship Candidate of Zenith Labour Party, Hon. Leyii Kwanee, in this interview with Blessing Ibunge, speaks on Governor Nyesom Wike’s Executive Orders 21 and 22 and why he’s optimistic the provisions of Electoral Act 2022 will ensure real election takes place in the state in the first quarter of 2023
can you tell us who Leyii Kwanee is?
My name is Leyii Kwanee, I was born 57 years ago to the family of Mr and Mrs Roland Kwanee from Taabaa Community in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State. I grew up in my community and enjoyed the ambience and aura of communal living. I travelled to Port Harcourt for the first time when I was in class three. I attended primary and secondary school in my community and by 1983, I concluded my secondary education and my quest for further education was steered by a particular man in my community who often called me “my Professor”. My first attempt to secure university education was stifled so I went to the School of Basic studies Port Harcourt, now Captain Elechi Amadi Polytechnic.
I later got admission into the then Rivers State University of Science and Technology in 1985 to study law. I graduated and attended the Nigeria Law School and was called to the Nigeria Bar in 1990. I did my Youth Service Corp with the Legal Aid Council after which l worked with the then Khana/ Oyigbo Local Government Area as a Legal Officer.
After my stint with the NYSC, I co-founded a Legal Office, Kwanee and Co in Abuja were I engaged in active legal practice until the herald of Democratic transition in 1999, when I made another adventure into partisan politics.
But the political space then was still not accommodative of my interest so I returned to Abuja to start all over again. The experience became a turning point in my life.
How do you combine your experience as a private solicitor, public servant and active political partisan, having served in the state legislature as Deputy Speaker?
Everything in life is centred around human being. God created us in his likeness, human beings are the raw materials for social coexistence. Without human being life stifles and die.
All of my life I have been human focused. At the NYSC, I related with a lot of young people with rays of enthusiasm and positive dreams which I helped to groom into limelights. I helped to facilitate their deployments, redeployments and to cancel them on other post graduation challenges. I have always been helpful to people, especially the young ones, while holding elderly people in very high esteem.
I love people, you will always meet people as a lawyer, you relate and deal with people as a politician. As the Deputy Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, my office was beehive of activities. Some days we attended to over 100 people. I rarely could put a wall of partitioning or discrepancy in attending to people from different backgrounds and needs.
You relapsed into private life for a while after you left the active political scene as Deputy Speaker, and now you are launching back into active politics by contesting for the position of Governor of Rivers under the platform of Zenith Labor Party. Why do you think you have the magical wand to rule a complex state like Rivers?
I’ve been an active participant in the evolving political scenario in Rivers State right from the days of former Governor Peter Odili, to Chibuike Amaechi, and I have been watching the Nyesom Wike’s Government closely. I have garnered a lot of experience all these years, including experience from the private sector.
I think there’s a missing link in the leadership of the people, this relates with the alienation of the people from being active participants in the process of governance. Leadership must be centred around the people. Rivers is the second richest state in Nigeria after Lagos, endowed with natural and human resources.
These resources have been underutilized, creating a yawning gap in the promotion and sustainability of our collective economic prosperity. We are coming on board with selflessness, sacrifice and to be people focused.
We are not coming to amass wealth or swindle our common wealth, but to plough our resources for multiplier economic impacts.
We will make public our assets before assuming office and also declare our assets after our stewardship. We are going to put in place a new era of prosperity that will be people driven, where Rivers people will be engaged creatively to work out a sustainable economic livelihood.
We are coming with the fear of God because this project is a divine mandate.
As a technocrat with vast experience in the private and public sectors, how do you consider the policy of comparative economic advantage as a panacea for economic revolution in Rivers State?
Rivers State is vast in cultural, economic and indigenous contents. Each Local Government Area in Rivers State is possessive of peculiar economic advantages that needs to be harnessed for economic growth. Apart from the huge deposits of oil and gas, the state is blessed with agrarian potentials and other resources that are lying forlorn.
We have three viable Senatorial Districts that need to be fully industrialized and urbanized.
We will urbanize Ahoada, Bori and Degema and make them smart economic centres, we will also harness human capital to stimulate local economy and stem rural urban migration.
A new nexus in Nigeria Politics today is the startling guts of the youth to evade the strangle grip of power by the older political class, are you optimistic of an impending populist revolt through the ballots?
If I wasn’t optimistic, I won’t do what I am doing today. I wouldn’t have left the known for the unknown. I have over the years developed a spartan discipline and character that can stand the test of time. The consciousness and awareness is such that people are looking beyond political parties. Why it’s so bad for the APC and PDP is that even if today you bring angels from heaven to run the presidential tickets of these two parties, the cabals that surround these parties will not allow the right thing to be done.
The awareness is a demonstration of the youth’s believe in the entity call Nigeria, which is bigger than personal interests. If we may get it right, then a revolution must come through the ballots.
INEC has assured that votes will count in 2023, but a lot of people are still indifferent because of low awareness and perceived infringement of their franchise in previous elections. How will you and your party mobilize the people to vote?
During my formal introduction as the Governorship Candidate of my party, a young man got amused and when he was asked why he acted in such sceptical and sarcastic mould, he simply dismissed the possibilities of a credible and fair polls in Nigeria, he said, during the previous elections votes were cast by proxy, as he didn’t have the opportunity of voting for the candidates of his choice.
I want to give kudos to INEC for re-engineering the electoral laws to tackle these electoral flaws. The new laws have been put to test in two states in Nigeria and the outcome is interesting. Though there’s tendency of vote buying, it’s better than being deprived one’s vote.
Now let me tell you about the surprising aspect of the vote buying, you might give a man money, but you won’t follow him to the point voting to be sure he cast his vote in your favour. Nigerians are desirous of securing their future through their votes, people will vote their conscience.
Talking about mobilization, we are talking with a lot of grassroots based organisations. I can assure you that in the weeks ahead, we will be in all the communities, in all the available media space to sensitize our people that votes will count.
The Zenith Labor Party has come to offer hope and rejuvenation into the leadership of Rivers State. We are service driven and we have come to offer quality services to Rivers State by restoring the vestiges of our collective bond as a people with common socio cultural and political destiny. We will ensure that the institutions in the state are strengthened to ensure social order.
As a governorship candidate of ZLP, how do you deal with the state government Executive Orders 21 and 22, which mandated that every political party must get approval from the government before conducting campaign in any public properties in the state.
Right from 1999 until date, there has never been election in Rivers state. So with the new Electoral Act, I think there is going to be proper election. It has always been writing results, from the regime of Peter Odili, Rotimi Amaechi’s time, even till this present Governor Nyesom Wike’s first and second tenure. With the amended electoral law, vote is going to count and the people are very important in this our democracy.
All the measures you see with this our outgoing Governor is threatened by the new Electoral Act, he is doing whatever means possible in order to secure himself, by shutting every other political parties down and seeing that there is no competition in Rivers State, so at the end of the day Rivers people will have no other choice but rely only on his PDP. Because if he allows room for competition, his excesses will be exposed. But beyond all of that, Rivers people are wiser and will not fall into that antic. I have said severally that both the Order 21 and 22, they are evil, they are demonic and of course they are not going to stand the test of time.
The people will want to know how you will secure a sense of dignity over the prime objectives of the state and protect it from the unfettered invasion?
One of the major problems in Rivers State is tendency of some people to sell out. Our territorial boundaries are sometimes deliberately compromised to accommodate sharp practices that are detrimental to the development of the state.
I travelled to Abua Odual LGA, and I saw not less than 30 trucks laden with illegal products. Our communities are dead and gone, our recognized chiefs no longer live in communities, our Local Government Council Chairmen don’t live in the communities. The fabric of religious and traditional leadership has been destroyed.
The dwindling spheres of leadership has to be restored among the people. Security must first come from among ourselves, we must preserve our norms and values as a people as our reward system must be centred on merit and not mediocrity. The fundamental social disorder of idleness and mental servitude that has bedeviled our society will be corrected through Mental Adjustment Program (MAP) which is a cardinal policy of our administration. It’s regrettable to see the youths hovering around politicians for seasonal largesse. The tendency of using the youths as pawns in power game will be tackled through the engagement of youths in productive ventures. The human mind is a fundamental resource base that need to be harnessed positively, not abused. In this part of the world, hotels are the greatest investment, but patronages of this hotels are based on partisan consideration. These are counter productive measures for a society that is in dire need of economic development.
We will ensure that we uphold the original dream of the forefathers of the state to enthrone an egalitarian society were utilities work with a viable economy. Rivers State will be great again.
