As Party delegates warm up to elect their flag-bearers for the November 6, 2021 Anambra Governorship election, frontline PDP Aspirant, Mr. Godwin Ezeemo, in this Exclusive interview with Editor of Orient Newspapers, CHARLES OTU and SUNDAY ELOM N emphasized that the people of the State needs help and the only solution is for them to elect a government that can proffer solutions to the myriads of challenges facing the governed. For his passion to offer help therefore, Ezeemo urges his Party delegates to consider his Philanthropic gestures and give him their mandate to govern. Excerpts!
What informed your decision to come home and start charity works in your community instead of remaining overseas where you probably had a better life?
This is why I am telling you that I am different from other contesters. That is why I said I am confident that I will be given a ticket. I told you I am a philanthropist par excellence. I have been here since 2003, not because I directly came to contest for Anambra State governorship position. Since 2003 till now, I have been there for the people.
I have built houses for many people which nobody knows about. Why we are talking about it today is because I’m into politics, if not, I will not be recalling what I did some 10 or 15 years ago. If not because of politics, why should I do God’s work and then come out to broadcast it just to earn people’s praise? That does not make sense.
But what is really worrisome is the citizenry. They do not know which one is true and which one is not true. How can somebody want your vote, then he gives you a small thing and you give him the vote, then, as soon as you give him the vote, he gets to the position and he will not remember you again? And this has happened in 1999, in 2003. In fact, every four years it keeps happening. It is only a fool that will pass through a particular road and one particular bump keeps hitting his leg and he will still pass through the same road again. I am not saying that our people are fools but it is only a fool that can behave that way.
So, these people need help. They need to get a government that will help them. They need a government that will educate them and restore the sense of judgment in them. I returned from the UK basically to help our people, not really to contest for political positions and that is why I said I have finished what I came for and I have done that happily well.
But there is still a bigger work to be done out there, and having served in different political parties, I have done the apprenticeship. I did it to Ngige. I also financed him. I have done apprenticeship for a very long time but all of them were disappointing and I said, these people are not helping anyone. Don’t bring anything back for me. Just get this thing done right.
Like the guy that went for House of Assembly, I told him, look, do well. I was not here but I sent money and also spoke to the kingmakers to please allow him to go. I didn’t ask him to give me anything except to work for the people. But he got there and he couldn’t do anything. When I talk to him, he would say, “Godwin, leave me that is where I make my money. It is my constituency and I’m the politician here, so I have to make my money there.
But this is not what I want. Can you educate the constituency you are serving? Organize ordinary town hall meetings for each of the wards at least once in a year and tell them what they do not know. All I was asking for is for you to educate them. Today he is opposing me like his worst enemy. So because of all these disappointments from the people I supported to do what is right for the people, I decided to come into the ring to prove that I can do this if I get the hold of power. I can tell you that I can deliver 100 percent for the people. When I say 100 percent, I am very sure of myself. I don’t need to make away with any kobo from the government purse. There is no need for it. Why do I want it?
How would you assess APGA government for the 16 years it has been in power in Anambra State?
Before I go to that, among those things I said that I can do well is that I will bring maintenance culture back into the system and that means that I will ensure road maintenance. Maintenance culture is lacking in our system and that has destroyed us. You will see a road that has spoiled, it will not be maintained. If you pass through this one I built, (in Umuchu), I maintain it. Go and see some bad spots they have noticed, in two, three weeks’ time, the person who is going to do it will come and patch them. It won’t go any further. But you see the other roads and how bad they are. Yet, nobody will look at it.
The Commissioner for Works will pass through it; the people in the Works office will pass through them and see them. What do you do in that office? If you know what you are doing, when you pass through the road and see how it is, you place a call and say, ‘Oga’, this is not good. Let’s go and maintain this one. That is why you are there. At least, you bring it to their notice, let it be that they see them and leave it.
Maintenance of the roads will save cost, save money for the State and that money will be used for something else. You don’t wait until the road goes very bad, then you award a brand new contract from where you will make more money. It is wrong because you are not looking at the people. You are not doing what the people need from you. You must have to think about the welfare of the people.
That particular road you passed through that is bad, they call it federal road. But if it is a federal road, people who are plying it are Anambrarians. So, do it because it is your people that are passing through it. Do it for them. These are your supporters that are going through trouble. Why would you be so callous to say it is the federal government? Do the road and keep the cost for them (federal government) and follow it up. That is why you have to keep that relationship with whoever is there; which I’m sure I can do because I have no ego. I am not proud. Everybody has pride but you manage your pride because if you don’t manage it, you are in trouble.
So, for the past 16 years that APGA has been there, the former governor, Peter Obi did well. He tried his best because the state was in shambles entirely. Safe for the little Ngige did, the State was in shambles, exactly what is available now. It is the same situation. Whoever is coming in as a governor is going to face the same situation because everything is in shambles. Look at the hospitals, they are all just block walls with roofs, painted in magnolia. Go inside it, nothing is happening. Is that a hospital? A hospital you don’t have medical doctors working there. If you have a Medical Doctor working there, he comes once or twice a week. You don’t pay them well. Where is the money going? And then you tell me that you are doing well.
None of them is working. Look at schools; they are nothing to write home about. Is that the type of schools you will make up people that will compete with people from other parts of the world? Well, the highly talented ones will make it, but the ones that you could have groomed to make it will not make it because you were not able to groom them. So, they are not doing well as far as I’m concerned. Yet, we go about claiming we are the best. We are the best in word but where is the standard?
The current administration tried in the first tenure but there is a lot of deceit and Anambra people are still prone to deception because they are not looking for the substance and so they will be deceived again. There are roads they started but they didn’t complete them; soon now they will bring machines to that point that they want to start the work. In fact, they have started already, at the middle of the rainy season. They have positioned the machines to deceive people that as soon as the rain stops they will start the work. The same people they deceived yesterday will still be deceived today and that will happen again and again and again.
Look, all the roads at this old Aguata area including the one that was supposed to come through Achina to Enugu-Umunya, for the past good 8 years, they only achieved about 500 meters. Shamelessness!!! That is why I am talking about our youths. The youths whose lives are being turned around negatively are still clapping for them. If you ask them, they will tell you that the government is doing well because they are hungry, it is deliberate and they know they are hungry. They can’t do anything and the political class knows that. That is why somebody could come out and say that if you give them money, they will vote for me. They don’t know you. They have never seen you. You have not been in that field, and then, because you will give them money, they will vote for you. They will fall and they will fall again.
How are you going to change the money for vote trend, especially as there are a lot of aspirants particularly in your Party?
I can’t change it now but if I’m the governor, I can change it. It is doable. I have told you it is only by enlightening the people, especially by laying much emphasis on agriculture to make sure that there is enough food and that people have basic things. Once people have basic things, they will start reasoning but if they are hungry, they are not reasoning well. There is no type of explanation you will make that they will understand.
I will make sure that farming here is encouraging. I will encourage farmers by giving them proper incentives. I’m a farmer and I know the trouble I’m going through. The government today doesn’t know I’m a farmer because I’m not a member of APGA. They forget that I make food for Anambra people. It is only members of APGA who are farmers that they look at.
I won’t do that if I’m the governor. Whatever is available here is for (all) Anambrarians, whether you are APC, APGA or whatever. Mine is, if you are doing it, you have to do it well and you have to be encouraged for what you are doing. The same thing I told them about ABS Radio/TV. We have ABS Radio and we have ABS TV but what are they doing? We are boasting we are too much, we are this and we are that, yet, no person from PDP will use ABS; they will frustrate it.
I contributed so much to ABS in 2007 or thereabout when I started coming home. Whatever they did, I was part of it, encouraging them to do it but at a certain point, they started saying, Goddy is not a member of APGA, so don’t allow him. So, sometimes people from ABS would say they are coming to ask me some questions; I would tell them not to come because you people said you don’t want me because I am not a member of APGA, so I don’t need you people because I will never be a member of APGA. Keep it for APGAs and earn no money. They take government money to pay ABS people while ABS is a station that the whole Anambra owns.
As we are in a political era now, the target audience of ABS is the whole of Anambra, so why should I go to network programmes? ABS is enough to tell Anambrarians who I am and then I will pay them that money I would have paid to NTA, AIT or any other one, and the State will still use that money. If I’m the governor, the way I use ABS is the way members of other Parties will use it. What is important is that ABS will be a big outfit that has a lot of money to sustain itself and I will not need to give them money before they will operate, rather we get money out of them to build other things.
What is AIT doing? Is it not the same thing ABS is doing that AIT is doing to earn a living? Likewise Channels TV. Why can’t the state do that? They are not doing it because they keep it for themselves only and that is why they are dying.
How do you feel about Governor Obiano’s administration, his borrowings and the debt accumulated by his government?
Well, work is going on now. They need to go to certain quarters and see the trouble they have caused in the State. Obiano is not the person that was supposed to be there. The Anambra North people chose a particular man they have but he was rejected maybe because he was not from a certain denomination. That is why we plunged ourselves into this mess. Everybody is going through this trouble.
So, I don’t know how to describe the current government. The current government has not done very well. Sincerely, it has not done well; but what can we do?
In 2013 I vied for a governorship position in Anambra State. From Aguleri roundabout to Otuocha roundabout and to Ayamelum were even better than as it is now. What happened now? Are the people there not Anambrarians? For 8 good years, it is still like that. I don’t see what was built. I don’t see where the money is or where it was spent. The Anambrarians feel they shared the money. If you share the money, it will not provide the utilities. It will not provide a good environment for the people. You don’t need to share money. What we need to share is utilities: the road, water, light, good hospitals, good schools and every other thing. That is what we need to put in place so that everybody can access it and have a little good.
If you are not able to provide this, you are not doing anything. You might have your people you are giving and you might appoint one thousand SAs and be paying them money but that is not the solution. It does not provide any solution. The SAs will be there but the SAs must be productive. If you appoint one thousand SAs, that one thousand SAs can make this state work.
If I appoint one thousand SAs, those one thousand SAs will make Anambra State work by fire by force. If I appoint you as SA, I will tell you; see what I am assigning to you, if it misses a bit, I will strip you off your duty. Whatever I assign to you, do it and do it well.
But what we are seeing now is that SAs are appointed for compensation without any input from them. So, how can it work? I might not be very good at criticizing anybody but Obiano has given us what he has. He hasn’t got anything. What he has given us is what he has. That is what he could offer.
People have been celebrating the Anambra Airport. As a businessman, what is your opinion on the airport project?
As far as I’m concerned, we want an airport but wanting an airport should not eat into other areas that are important in our everyday life. Building an airport is not supposed to put into disadvantage, other areas of our lives. It is not supposed to affect our roads. How many people fly? We want an airport, I know that. In 2017 I told them during our campaign when they asked about an airport; I said we want an airport in Anambra State but that is not what we will carry a certain volume of our money and dump in.
You can do this in two, three, four phases. If I am the governor, I will do the first phase, get the tarmac done, get the equipment done and have a hut where people can run into if they land and it is raining. People land and go away, they are not living there.
If you do it in three phases, the airport will become a big airport one day. Get the runway done and get the Radar and aviation equipment. In 1985, I boarded a flight from Lagos to Zaria, we landed at Minna. We were about 16 people in the flight. When we landed, people who were going to Minna disembarked and I saw people coming out from huts far away. We landed because there is a runway for planes to land and there is equipment. They had just thatched houses but the airport was running.
So, you don’t need to carry all the money which you can use to touch other areas of people’s life and dump it in one place, because you want to use it for a campaign; that is silly. That does not make any sense to me. People talk about it but it does not make sense to me. I love it but it is wrong. Over some years, the next governor can complete it. We still have Asaba, Imo and Enugu airports helping. So it is not something that demands that we must get the whole of the money into it at once.
Somebody will say that it will quicken the economy and I laugh at them. Which economy will it quicken? Flight from Lagos to this place (Anambra) will quicken which economy? If you want to quicken the economy, go and control and manage the traffic in Onitsha and Eke-Awka, let the roads be free for people to move around, then, the economy will be quickened. And when you are managing it, you are earning revenue for the people. You are creating employment for somebody.
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.