(Interview) My govt enthroned peace and development Abia is enjoying today —T.A Orji

My govt enthroned peace and devt Abia is enjoying today —T.A Orji

Theodore Orji, was a two-term governor of Abia State and currently represents Abia Central senatorial zone at the Senate. In this interview with FUNSO OLOJO, the senator reminiscences on his eight-year tenure as governor of Abia State, predicted the electoral victory of his successor at the Supreme court, his travails in the hands of political gladiators in the state and his efforts to use his current position to consolidate his achievements in the state

What is the experience like as a former governor and now the senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?

It is a good experience being a senator but the work schedule is not the same. As a governor, you have all the state as your constituency. You are the chief executive of the state saddled with the onerous responsibility of working for the welfare of the whole state. But as a senator, ii is different ball game. You are now in the other arm of government, legislature where you make good laws for the good of your people.

But that doesn’t not mean, as a senator, you cannot do things to empower your people through good projects.

As a senator, what impact have you made on the lives of your constituents in Abia Central?

I have made my impart felt within the very short time I became a senator. I have given 60 scholarships to my constituents. My senatorial constituency has six local governments and I picked 10 beneficiaries from each local government. For each local government, the criteria used were that five of the scholarships are given to indigent constituents while the remaining five given on the basis of intelligence.

Each beneficiary was given N100, 000, totalling N6million for the scholarship programme. There are other programmes which I have embarked upon to better the lives of my constituents.

There is a hall in Nsialagwa South LGA that has long been abandoned and when my attention was called to the dilapidated nature of the hall, I took it upon myself to renovate it and the people appreciated it and I have the plan to do more.

These are some of the things you could do as a senator to impart the lives of your constituents.

What other developmental programmes do you intend to embark upon to affect the lives of your constituents positively?

Just I have told you earlier of the two projects I have done within six months of my becoming a senator, I have plans to carry our more people-friendly projects in the course of my tenure.

It is my desire to attract Federal government presence to my constituency that will create jobs. I will use my extensive connections and contacts to bring this to fruition. I belong to so many committees which I will also use to attract good employment opportunists to my constituents.

Another programme I have is skill acquisition through which I will empower my constituents.

I am already in contacts with some experts and professionals in some of these vocational jobs who will be invited to my constituency to teach people requisite skills in these vocational jobs like GSM repairs, fashion designs, hairdressing, catering services and the likes. That arrangement is on.

The empowerment programme will be about three months after which I will give funds to the successful ones to start to pursue the business the y are taught.

Also, I intend to purchase grinding machines through which some of these indigents women would use to eke out a living that would be used to support their dependants.

This type of programme, I believe, will help to reduce poverty among my constituents.

In addition, I intend to renovate and equip a block of classroom each from the six local governments which are found to be dilapidated. This will go a long way to impart on the educational advancement in my constituency.

I intend to improve on the infrastructural facilities in my constituency. By this I want to embark on grading some of the bad roads to make them motorable, especially in the hinterlands to help the villagers have access to the markets in the town to sell their goods.

I will use my position in the senate to attract Federal government projects such as roads, schools, hospitals to my senatorial district, ensure that their funding is adequately provided for in the budget.

The summary of what I am saying is that I will make a qualitative representation of my constituency in the senate.

How transparent was the process which threw up your successor?

The process was transparent. A lot of contestants participated in the process of primary which was held in the open field of Umahia Stadium. It was clean. Ikpeazu contested with others and won fair and square.

Before the primary, I remained the first and only governor who called the meeting of stakeholders, the founding fathers of Abia State. I asked them to have a consensus candidate which will not bring rancour and bitterness. For the sake of fairness and equity, I asked them that the candidate should come from Abia South senatorial district which has never produced a governor.

Many of these elders did not like that. They wanted to continue to hold on to power, especially those who are from the other Zones.

I told them that you people are the ones who wrote the charter of equity of Abia and we have to base it on that. I appealed to them to allow power to rotate so that there would be fairness and peace in Abia.

Eventually, they agreed. That was how this young man emerged from the primary. But it was the general agreement that power has to move to the South. Normally in a situation like this, people have started nursing conflicting interests and ambitions.

One Okasanya who was saying all sorts of nonsense against me never supported Okeize Ikpeazu.

Before this time, he was hobnobbing with one of the candidates from Ngwa who has money. You know he goes to where he can get money. That is his own brand of politics, money politics.

When that union failed, he switched his allegiance to Alex Otti in APGA while in PDP.

The party noticed his disloyalty and he knew that he would be sanctioned as a BOT chairman, so he left first to APGA and I learnt he has also left for another party from where he now castigated the PDP.

But you were once in PPA before you went to PDP

I left on principles. My reasons were genuine and not money-based. Nobody imposed any candidate on Abia people.

Ikpeazu won the primary, endorsed by the state and the national level. The process was transparent. Those who are talking on their both sides of the months were doing so because their candidates lost.

The results of the elections, which have now been vindicated by the decisions of the Supreme Court, confirmed the mandate of the people show that Ikpeazu was the people’s choice.

As the governor, I stood by the choice of my people and as a responsible governor I did what I have to do, give my endorsement.

Despite the anti- party activities of some people, PDP won Abia State governorship election, three senatorial seats and seven out of the eight federal House of Reps seats. That shows that PDP is on ground.

I did not impose any candidate on the good people of Abia State. The governor emerged winners from a transparent process which other candidate took part.

This man, Okasayan, who was saying all sort of rubbish against me was the same man I rehabilitated when I was a governor. Even though I was warned to be wary of him that he would betray me, I still went ahead to favour him. At the end of the day, he came round to betray me.

To placate him, I even made him my special adviser on politics, he never gave me a piece of advice for one day. He did not write a single memo. I still paid him and funded his frequent medical trips abroad.

I even paid him the accumulated debts which the previous government in Abia State owned him in order to revive him because he was virtually finished financially.

I placed him on a special salary every month and even bought him a brand new Prado jeep.

This is the same man who is now castigating me despite all what I did for him.

His likes to practise money politics and less interested in the welfare of people. The same elders I brought together in Abia for the peace and unity of the state. These are the same people casting aspersion on me.

As a distinguished politician, former governor of Abia State and the senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, what do you want to be remembered for?

I would like to be remembered as a governor who brought peace and harmony to Abia State Before I became governor, there was disunity and disaffection in the state. But I was able to rally everybody together when I was a governor for the unity and development of the state.

I remained the governor who worked doggedly against kidnapping and won the battle. That is the peace we are enjoying today.

We were embarrassed by the activities of kidnappers when I was a governor but we were able to suppress it.

I want the people of Abia to remember me for the good job I did for them. I remained the governor who empowered the youths. I also did much to improve the education sector in the state. The state consistently maintained second position in WAEC in the whole of Nigeria after Anambra State. The state won many laurel in education during my tenure.

I was the first governor who proceeded to the senate after his tenure .It is historical t6hat after I finished my two- term tenure as a governor, my people still found me worthy and voted overwhelmingly for me to go into the senate.