As PDP delegates warm up to elect their candidate for the November 6, 2021 Anambra Governorship election, frontline Aspirant, Mr. Godwin Ezeemo, in this Exclusive interview with Editor of Orient Newspapers, CHARLES OTU and SUNDAY ELOM N maintains that zoning factor in 2013 brought the incumbent governor from the North, Chief Willie Obiano, as he couldn’t have made it on his own. He therefore urges his Party‘s delegates to consider his Philanthropic gestures and give him their mandate to govern the state come this Saturday’s primary election. Excerpts!
what do you think about zoning? Do you think it should be a factor to consider?
Zoning as far as I’m concerned is the constitution of PDP and there is room for zoning so that weaker areas can be accommodated and they will not be marginalized. That is why when you look at the national level, everybody is clamoring for it. One would say, can we move this to the other side because the party constitution provides for it. So there is no big deal about it here in Anambra State.
Zoning was strictly done to favour our brothers in the North and they are happy about it and we should do it here to favour them too. If you leave it for whoever that can struggle and win it, they wouldn’t have gotten there at all; then of what use is it? They would have been crying perpetually for it and is that fair to them? So Peter (Peter Obi) did well by doing that. It is not written because it will go against the constitution of this country and so you don’t have to write it in principle but people do it as a gentleman’s agreement.
Zoning is done everywhere but because our people with their inordinate ambitions, many a time, what is right, they don’t want to say that it is right because they are looking at doing something like that tomorrow and they can use that as an example; destroying the mainstay of what will keep the people. They don’t know what they are doing. May God forgive them.
I am a household name in Anambra State. I have been here since 2003 and I came into politics in 2013. Mention Godwin Ezeemo anywhere and they will tell you he is a good man. He is sincere. He doesn’t give us money a lot but if you want this job to be done, give it to him, he will deliver. That is the testimony. So, whether there is zoning or no zoning, I have done it in 2013 without zoning all over the place. There was zoning and they said it was coming from the South but my party then, PPA didn’t zone.
The three parties that go with zoning were APGA, PDP and APC. If you look at the parties and the people they have produced, it is at the last minute that they tell people that they are choosing their people from the south and then the delegates will act that way. By now, they don’t tell anybody about that. There will be a lot of bickering and people will complain but I’m not complaining. Why should I complain? However, what is good for the geese is also good for the gander.
How would you react to the increasing general insecurity in Nigeria? Do you think it will affect the Anambra governorship election?
Well, I will never be in support of destroying what we have already. I don’t even know what we gain by doing that. Let the authorities find solutions to this. Let the authorities go back to the drawing board. I am calling on our representatives, people going to the House of Representatives from Anambra State and all the Eastern states, all the Western states, all the middle belt area, people in the National Assembly, to go and sit and rewrite a proper proposal and make it a law that there should be restructuring. That restructuring should go this way. It is on their table.
It is not for votes here and there that is their job; or coming to build huts for people claiming that they are building for people. That is not their job. Let them face their jobs. Let them get to the National Assembly and let them pass it as a law because we need restructuring. That is the solution. Nigeria does not need to break but we need to restructure. We need to go back to how we were when we were originally Eastern, Western and Northern region. Let every state work and look after their people and then we can settle the centre.
Is that not what is going on in the US? Every state is doing its own things. Why should we borrow and use it to enslave some group? It is absolutely wrong. We as Nigerians have a lot we can benefit by being together as one. We will benefit a lot with a very big economy and everybody would want to come to Nigeria. But let us get this restructuring right and then we share our cake equitably well. That is why I said; let us get ourselves to be a proper zoo that is doing well instead of a jungle where we found ourselves. Things are not working in the jungle.
If you become the governor, how will you lift Anambra State from a business state to an industrialist state?
I must tell you the truth, I am a politician but I’m a politician with a difference. As I am now, I want to start buying and selling more than the industrialists you are talking about. By now you should have known that there is no industry that can grow in a nation where there is no power supply. There is no industry that can grow here without power supply. So, I can’t do anything in Anambra. First four years is not possible. Maybe in the sixth year or thereabout, you can start something about power.
I will, as a matter of fact, invest in power generation. It will only provide the environment that will encourage somebody to invest. Every industrialist wants to come into maybe an industrial park, plug in and start manufacturing or doing whatever he is doing and be paying you your bill. They don’t want to use their generator to do it.
If I create a Business Park in the south, central and north and maybe up to a kilometer and half or two kilometers radius, you know what will be there. Then provide constant power supply, constant water supply, then, you can call somebody to come. He will come and build. But you have to plan it out and set out a good road network and everything. Then, if you give them (investors) a chance, they will come because they see that power supply and every other thing is working.
Investors are like vultures. Once you have a dead something somewhere in the bush, they will come over. If it is about to die, they will perch around and wait until the thing dies and they will descend on it. Give them just one week and they will finish everything. So are businessmen and investors. If you provide a good environment here, we have cheap labour, though we don’t have good work ethics but still somebody can manage that.
What is the killer here is the power supply. With a good environment, people will produce what they are buying outside here. They cannot do that with generators. Why I am telling you this is because I have been there. Many of our people have come to me and asked what we can do to manufacture here but I tell them not to look at me because if you look at me the way I do it, you will not keep up with it. That is why you see that somebody will start a business and after some time he will close down because the environment is not conducive. It is not enabling.
What is your view on attacks on press freedom by politicians, leaders and power holders who tag objective reportage fake news?
Are the journalists themselves together? A house divided by itself can never stand. Journalists, when you make that objective reportage, will attack you and criticize you before those people and then they will use him to talk you down. So, it is not just the people at the head but the journalists themselves.
I built a two-storey building for you people in Awka. The reason is to encourage you people to produce objective and professional reports but they are not interested in that. They are only interested in the money they get to tell lies. Do you know the worst, common NUJ you are running; I have seen how they do it.
Maybe since 2008 or 2009 when I started building that NUJ Secretariat before I became a politician, but I see that there is no accountability. Where is the moral to criticize the government in power when in your own little enclave, NUJ, you couldn’t account to your people what you are doing? How do you criticize when during elections they scatter you and rubbish you because they have given you money? So, journalists are part of the trouble.
But if I become the governor, nobody will attack any journalist who publishes objective reports as far as it is credible with evidence. I will protect the person; but it shouldn’t be frivolous and something you are not sure of. Once the empirical evidence is there, I will make sure I protect the person till the end.
Early this year, former governor, Peter Obi said that he wants the governorship candidate to emerge on a clean slate, that there will be no room for bribing INEC officials to influence elections but that all the politicians should go back to their grassroots and start campaigning, how far has that moved?
Well, it is easier said than done. He said it and he is doing it to his best but I do not see fairness. The system is already unfair because the people who are going to do the election were all appointed. They were not chosen by the people. So, it is a faulted system already. So, if you are saying it is going to be free and fair, you are not being fair to yourself. They are not even being fair to the people because already, the people you have are people you wrote their names and submitted and they will be loyal to you.
Do you have fear that delegates will be induced?
Delegates are induced every day. Are they not being induced now? Since last year we have been inducing them. We are campaigning and we are talking to them. People are giving them money. It is that money that they are looking at. They are not looking at issues objectively. What they are after is, this one gave us N20,000, so he is the right man. When another person gives them N25,000, then they will say, let us follow him, he is the right person.
Let me tell you, what is happening in Anambra has started partially in other states and it will escalate more than that of Anambra one day and by then, Anambra will be coming down because they must have suffered and will then be coming down to real life.
So, forget about free and fair elections. There is no free and fair election here. Free and fair to the extent of giving us 70% free and fair is ok. If you can make 70% free and fair elections, that is ok, but you can’t get it. I don’t see it coming in any of the political parties. Things are wrong.
Some political parties have looked at their aspirants, screened them in line with the constitution of the party and certain places where they didn’t even align with the constitution of the party, they allowed it. How do you expect the system to be ok? They allowed them because somebody had taken something and so they allowed it to go. How can it be free and fair when you are not fair to the person who is well qualified because you have put in someone else? We can’t even get 40% free and fair elections. There is no clean slate anywhere because everybody is already fighting. There is trouble there already.
If you don’t pick the ticket, will you be a candidate in another party?
When we get to that bridge we will cross it but what I can tell you is that it is not a matter of life and death. If I have come to serve the people and the people I came to serve say they don’t want me, like Moses when he mediated over two Israelites and one asked him who made him a judge over them, he left them and ran away. So, I have come to help my people and I have said, I can do this and I will do it selflessly for you but you said you don’t want me, why should I mourn? Why should I even go grumbling?
Don’t you consider what you put in politics as a waste?
Anything given is given for a purpose. If you are giving money, you are not giving it for yourself. You are giving the money to impact people’s lives wherever you find yourself. It is not the volume of money in the bank that matters but what it is able to do among the people. Remember the Bible will tell you that you will account for the money. I gave you N100 billion and I gave you a business that gave you a lot of money, what did you do with it?
You only used it to cause trouble within political parties because you want to grab power while people living around you are living in abject poverty. You couldn’t even do a common road that leads to your house. Some of us vying for this election couldn’t even do the road that leads to their house, yet they claim they have the whole money in the whole world.
What I have spent is meant for it. That is how I see it. If I win, fine; if I don’t win, fine but it is not a matter of life and death. We are only looking at, I have made myself available to serve the people and the people don’t want me. Why should I have a grumpy face? I should be happy. My conscience will be at peace with me. But if I had not come here and I had remained in the UK and my mouth was wagging that they are not doing it well, that is when I would blame myself.
There are a lot of people that can do well but they don’t want to come out because they are afraid but I’m not afraid. I have made myself available because I want to deliver, because I want to help my people, I engaged in this. Look at Nelson Mandela; because he wanted to help his people, he insisted that apartheid must be dismantled. They gave him the option of going out there but he refused. That is a sacrifice. Jesus Christ did that kind of thing. He had the power to do a lot but he didn’t use that power; rather, he allowed them to molest him, beat him and kill him.
For me, I have always forgone my comfort zone where I live my life freely as an individual and come back here, living here in a very remote village and have been impacting the lives of people. So, I have done what I was supposed to do. So, why should I even spend that money on them when they have their own and they can live on their own? But I don’t look at it that way. The question is, how do you look at your neighbor? Love your neighbor with your heart and your money. That is the rule.
What is your view on open grazing?
I have never supported open grazing. I have seen farms abroad, they don’t graze openly. You keep the animals in one place and feed them there and get a lot of milk and everything there rather than come here for open graze, causing trouble.
How can somebody make his farm and you use your cow to destroy it? Common, it doesn’t make sense. It is not fair. Open grazing shouldn’t be accepted. It is not right. It is not fair for the people. You don’t even need to bring this cow here.
Abattoir should be set up, slaughter animals there and use articulated vehicles to transport them down here as meat. So it is done everywhere. Why are you bringing it here to kill here and deface everywhere, even city centre, Abuja? It is not right at all! I can say it and say it anywhere! You can start preparing hares as their food, plant grasses to produce their food and that can also be a good source of employment for people but you are taking them around and causing trouble when we aren’t supposed to have trouble.