Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji, in this encounter with Assistant Politics Editor, DANIEL KANU, speaks on politics in the state, expectations, opposition campaign and President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election project, among other crucial issues. Excerpts…
What would Abians expect from you at this last lap of your administration?
But the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) are to upstage the PDP?
What do you expect from them? That is what they are supposed to say because you don’t expect them to praise you. They are in the opposition and saying what they are expected to say. They cannot provide any better alternative. I can confidently tell people that PDP is deeply rooted in Abia; Abia is PDP and PDP is Abia. Here we say PDP all the way and that is what we are going to exhibit during the coming election. We have done it before and we will do it again.
The truth is that there is no opposition in Abia. APC, APGA and some others that their membership is not up to 20 are on their own and cannot constitute a threat to the PDP. They don’t pose any slightest threat to us because Abians are massively behind us. This is the only party that has full structure on the ground from the state to the unit level in Abia. Our structures are solid and have been re-invigorated more than ever; so the people of Abia are in charge. Our party is not an individual thing; it is where Abians have decided to stick to and they are not regretting it.
Look, let me be frank with you; those other parties that you are mentioning are mere paper tigers and have no place in the state. They simply make noise because some of them have access to the press or owners of some media establishment. You know that an empty vessel makes the loudest noise. They are experts in noise-making. Abians know what they want; they want the PDP, have accepted the PDP and are not going back. PDP does not have the penchant of making noise, at least not in Abia. We are performers, and we will continue to perform.
How would you situate the state’s politics, especially now that the party’s governorship candidate, Okezie Ikpeazu, is about to take the centre stage in his campaign?
In Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, first and foremost, we have a credible candidate, he is highly marketable. He is not from the diaspora; he is a home boy that has been with us here for many years. He has been involved in the civil service and politics for many years, and Abians love him. Honestly speaking, Ikpeazu is going to take Abia to the next level. We have also gotten a valuable deputy, a reliable running mate for him in the person of the Speaker of the House, Ude Okochukwu. This is a man who has held the House peacefully and with great maturity for many years without the honourable members showing any resentment. There was nothing like any threat of impeachment and he managed the House with poise and intellect. He is very popular, acceptable and comes from an area that produces massive vote. So we are confident that the combination will give Abia PDP the victory.
Ikpeazu also comes from Obingwa, an area with large population that will give us votes. We are sure we have made the right choice and they will sail through and give us the victory. We are bringing a formidable team on board and Abians are happy with the candidates. Personally, my senatorial ambition is not of my making, rather my people’s making. They know I will give them effective representation and you can see them branding my campaign vehicles “Effective Representation”. I just saw the inscription on our campaign buses and I was touched by the people’s massive support and belief in my ability to give them effective representation. We have a formidable team for Abuja and Abians it know will not fail them.
What is your take on President Jonathan’s re-election project?
I have said it severally that President Jonathan will succeed; he is going to win the election. He will win despite the lies of the opposition. Nigerians know that Mr. President has performed above others before him, and he is not one gifted with noise-making. The opposition are desperately penetrating all places, poisoning the minds of the people. But trust Nigerians, they know the truth and they know that Jonathan has done well. It is sad that the opposition is telling lies against a president who is performing. They are carrying all sorts of propaganda to blackmail the president. But Nigerians will shock them at the polls. The opposition will not succeed in their dangerous agenda. The president will win the election because he has done well in governance and we expect that he will do even better during his second term consolidation stage. The first tenure is always full of challenges. Despite all the challenges that confront him, he showed he has the capacity to raise the leadership bar. Let Nigerians disregard all the insinuations from the opposition propaganda. None of them will come out to praise the president because they have one odd intention or another. They can only criticize; but ask them to provide alternative, you will know that they have none to offer. I am confident that President Jonathan will win.
Some critics of Jonathan say he failed on security, as they pointed his failure to rescue the Chibok girls close to a year after their abduction?
Security is a great challenge not only to Nigeria; globally, we have serious security challenges. It is the capacity of the country to try its best to handle the situation that matters, and President Jonathan has shown great maturity in the way the security issue is being handled. He is not keeping quiet over it and you know security issues are very sensitive issues that are not all discussed on the pages of the newspaper. Have you forgotten insecurity in some states before the Chibok girls case and most of them where tackled. You remember how we fought insecurity in Abia before we overcame with the assistance of the federal government. Did the opposition praise us on what we did to stop insecurity in Abia? In some other states too, in the South East, we have done well and in all you can see that Jonathan is contributing to it to ensure there is peace. You can see what terrorism is doing to countries the world over, but I am confident that we shall overcome.
The Chibok issue should be the responsibility of everybody and not putting the blame on the federal government. I can tell you that the federal government is not sleeping over it. Strong efforts are on the ground to ensure that the girls are released unhurt. We believe that those innocent girls will be released. There is a lot of politics on the security situation in the North East, and to use it to blackmail the president. If Jonathan says today that he is not running, you will see that some of these insecurity issues will stop. Some of the things that we are witnessing today is a strategy against the president, but I like his determination in contesting and I am cork sure Nigerians will vote for him. If we say we are one Nigeria, why should a Nigerian citizen in office, one well qualified, be treated as if he has no right to seek re-election? We should be careful in the way we play politics because no region has monopoly of violence.