Senator representing Anambra Central, Dr. Chris Ngige, who is seeking a return to the National Assembly, speaks with Senior Correspondent, OKEY MADUFORO, on his optimism to win and agenda for the people if re-elected.
Postponement of elections
It is the Electoral Law and Constitution that empower the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fix dates for all the national elections. But if I tell you that the shift did not affect the calculations and arrangements of political parties and candidates like us, I will be lying. But it is with peace that I receive it. However, the chief electoral umpire, Prof. Attahiru Jega, sees the postponement, not from INEC challenges but challenges facing other arms of government and other agencies of government, like the military. This is in view of the security challenges in the North East part of the country where states have been ravaged by Boko Haram and some local governments taken away from the Nigerian government.
Therefore, the question to ask now is, will six weeks be enough for you to do the surgery; to do the clinical surgery that you are talking about? If that is no, why then the postponement? If yes, good, and we will then live to see, because seeing is believing.
Alleged role of government on the postponement
I have heard that before. So people feel that it was deliberate, due to the fears being entertained that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would lose the elections. I know that, to a very large extent, is the situation on the ground. They (PDP) do not have the steam anymore. The party has nothing to campaign with, there is nothing to show the electorate. They merely postponed the evil day or the doomsday. This is because they have failed.
Obviously, the PDP is apprehensive about that doom’s day.
Appeal court judgment over PDP candidates
That is what we normally see. It is one of the Shenanigans being played out by PDP in all elections here. And for me, they enjoy it. Because like me now in Anambra Central Senatorial Zone, three candidates are campaigning against me, and they emanate from different local governments. They are canvassing in their various local governments, and whether you like it or not, there is a son of the soil syndrome that plays out in the politics of the area, especially when you have been good to your people, especially when you have things to give to your people. So it is unfair, fraudulent for PDP to permit her people to be going to court to challenge a national nomination, done by the national executive body of their party. This is indiscipline. First and foremost, the people should have been expelled from the party. Once that is done in the party, such things won’t happen anymore. I do not know if I am to use the word ‘deliberate’ or that ‘the officials have soiled their hands’. So they lack the moral standing and the moral courage to stop these people and their actions.
Non-execution of constituency projects in your zone
Yes, I was reading one interview where Victor Umeh said that I did nothing since I have been in the Senate. He said that from the money given to me, I did nothing. It shows gross ignorance of what a constituency project is, and this is somebody that is aspiring to become a legislator.
Constituency projects are the ones you attract to your constituency through ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the federal government. For you to be able to do that, you should be a member of a committee. You can say during budgetary session, “my people have told me that they lack secondary schools, they lack boreholes, and they lack transformers in this area”.
In that case, the particular ministry or agency, if they want to assist you, if you are good with them, if they know what you are doing, will give it to you and you influence it in the budget. You, the appropriator, then okays those projects.
As part of my projects, I attracted the construction of health centres. That is number one constituency project. I have been able to attract that in the health sector as a member of the committee on health. They are at Uruezani Town, Alor in Idemili South. There is also primary health centre in Oba, Idemili South. Similar health centres abound in the seven local government areas of Anambra Central Senatorial zone.
Also through the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, we put in place motorised boreholes with overhead tanks and generators in 10 locations in my district which include Adazi-Ani, Abba, Akwaeze in Anaocha and Njikoka local government areas.
If you go to Urum village and Oba Ofemili in Awka North council area, you will witness the ongoing electrification projects and the reinforcement works.
When you go through the 10 to 11 ministries of the federal government, you would discover that I have attracted at least six projects per ministry, and majority of them have been completed, while some are at various stages of completion.
When you go to the Ezu River, you will see the solar-powered borehole to arrest the problem of Ezu River pollution. When you go to the Federal Government College, Nise in Awka South, you will see my constituency projects that have since been completed. These are school blocks.
The second set of constituency projects are those that come from the intervention projects which come from the Excess Crude Account (ECA). The money is domiciled in the Special Duties Ministry and it is the ministry that awards the contract. We do not participate. We do not touch money. We do not see any liquid money.
For Umeh to say I was given money and I pocketed it shows the mentality and hollowness of somebody who wants to go to the Senate. That also shows the type of senator he would be and how he is going to represent Anambra Central. Umeh should come and get educated.
He has exhibited half education which sends danger signals about the type of representation that will come from him if he will ever get to the Senate. This is what I call progressive illiteracy.
Operating as an opposition lawmaker
I must admit that it has not been easy; but for me to have attracted all these projects shows that I am focused. Besides, the resources of Nigeria belong to all. The transformers that I brought, the water boreholes and classroom blocks are not marked APC. They are for my people and not for only APC or PDP or APGA people alone; they are for Nigerians.
These are political parties. After the election and you get elected, you go to the National Assembly to represent the people irrespective of those who voted for you or did not vote for you.
Just like we have some political parties that are more of party of traders; they use APGA to trade and call it Igbo party.
Where are they today? Some even said that the day they leave APGA, they will stop politics. They said before now that the day they disobey the late Ojukwu for another party, let their children die. We heard such things and should not joke with them; they should be taken seriously. In fact, a party like APGA is not supposed to contest National Assembly election; it is a provincial party, a localised party.
Those telling you that APGA is there to give the Igbo a voice are only deceiving our people. We have two major parties; let the Igbo file into the two major parties and go and struggle with others. Ndigbo should not be lone rangers that are giants at home and show no strength outside.
If any of them gets to the National Assembly, he will be minority inside the opposition. We have about three Labour Party (LP) senators and nobody reckons with them. They were forced to migrate to PDP. Senator Chris Anyanwu (Imo) is from APGA and she was forced to migrate into the PDP.
Any of the persons that you elect into the National Assembly under APGA will migrate to APC or PDP.
Tough opponents in Anambra Central
What do you expect from my political opponents? These people are those fighting me and the APC. They are fighting us with the last drop of their blood, but I don’t know whether they have enough blood to fight. The government-in-power syndrome, which you talked about; Victor Umeh, Peter Obi and, (God rest her soul) Prof. Dora Akunyili all fought me in 2011 and boasted that they were going to retire me into my tiny village in Alor; and that after retiring me, they would make sure that I would not win councillorship election. I told them that they were not God.
I fought them and won the election conclusively and decisively. All those things that they did will not happen again. If the APGA candidate is thinking of doing that again, he is deluding himself. This is because the election for President, Senate and House of Representatives will take place same place, same time, same day, same hour, same minute and same second.
The business in the Senate is for men. It is for nationalists; people who have excelled in their chosen professions.
If you are a chairman of a party that has only one state and you say that it is the credential that you have, you have not worked for anybody in your life, you have not managed a successful business for yourself, and you have been chairman of a party for eight years, the party doesn’t grow, it doesn’t extend beyond Anambra and you say that is your own qualification, I disagree with you.
I say no, you are not qualified. You do not have experience to be at the National Assembly. The Senate is not traditional chieftaincy or Ozo title contest where you wear long red caps and break kolanuts. That is not what we go to the Senate to do.