by: IFEANYI CY
Chief Ikedi Ohakim was the Governor of Imo State from 2007 to 2011. He won the election on the platform of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA). He began his political career as a youth leader in Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) and in 1992/93 he was appointed the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry during the botched Evan Enwerem tenure as Governor of Imo State. He ran for Okigwe Zone Senate in 1999. In 2003 he contested the governorship of Imo State, and in 2007 when he ran again for the governorship under PPA he won, but returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) few years later.
Q: Chief Ohakim, you are welcome. I want to start this conversation from the very beginning. As a former Governor, you know most of the things that were happening as you were growing up, but I want to take the story backwards. Tell us about your early life. Where were you born? Which schools did you attend, and what was being a child like, so many years ago?
Ans: Unfortunately, I was a child during the trouble period of this country, the civil war. But I can bit my chest and say I was lucky to be born, because my parents married without a child for ten years, and I became the first child. I grew up in love and the civil war came, and then we made do with the situation we found ourselves in. I was a child soldier. I was an apprentice mechanic. I was an apprentice welder. I drove a car loaded with palm at the age of 15. I ran around like other kids and I was born in a village called Okohia.
I went to village school and grew up in the village. I went to school when my mates did. I went to the St Michael’s school Okohia in my village. I went to secondary school in my village. I completed my secondary at the Government Technical College Enugu. I went to the University of Lagos. Then I worked in the world’s top organizations, the world’s largest multinational company in Nigeria, First Aluminum Group. I went into politics very early and became a youth leader in Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP). And then I continued that way and fortunately I became a Commissioner in 1992/93 with President Babangida as the President. One thing led to the other. I contested several elections in life and then I became a Governor in 2007.
Ans: I think it came very early very naturally, because I was following the footsteps of my father who was a community leader. It might interest you to know that at the age of 25 I became the President of Okohia Town Union, which was the first of its kind in my area. So, it has been natural. No matter what I do I still play the role of being very close to my people and my community, being sympathetic to issues of leadership and governance. It has been natural to me.
Q: In 1992 you were appointed a commissioner, at quite an early age. How did it happen?
Ans: Chief Evan Enwerem of blessed memory in partnership with other leaders considered me worthy, considered my contributions both at the community level and the corporate level, and decided that I would have a role to play and the first ministry that was allocated to me was Commerce and Industry, and my ministry was responsible for the first development summit of Imo State, which was printed in a book form at the end of the day. And then we were able to attract foreign investors as far back as 1992/93. But unfortunately, by November 1993 there was coup in the country and that administration was overthrown. All the allegations against me, including the fact that a Permanent Secretary who worked under me witnessed against me, but I still went through it. That incident thought me a big lesson in life. And my mother told me that every document that I signed then, that I must return a copy to her, that no one knows tomorrow. And I did obey my mother and that helped me. All the documents they forged against me, when I brought the original document people were shocked. And even as a former governor, most of the things I did I placed at lot of importance on keeping records, and that has saved me.
If you look at the situation we have in this country today, I am walking around the streets upon all the allegations leveled against me; upon all the propaganda against my administration I have not been found guilty, because I did things the way they were supposed to be done and I followed due process to the letter. I never saw the cheque book of Imo State Government. I operated in accordance with the requirement of the system. We never awarded any contract without design, we never awarded a contract without going through tender. We never awarded any contract to contract to contractors that were not registered. We made sure the contractors were registered, and they must provide Advance Payment Guarantee and Performance Bond. We never involved in any project that was not properly supervised. No single contract failed throughout my administration. No contractor ran away with One Naira throughout my administration. No project that we undertook that did not add value to our vision. I have not been found guilty in any court of law. I have not been to any police station all my life, reporting anybody or writing a petition. And that is my life: as simple as that.
As I speak to you I have no piece of land anywhere in Imo State other than the one my father gave to me in my village. You are also aware that the 3-bedroom bungalow I have in Owerri was the house I built in 1992/93. Apart from that house, all the allegations that I own more than half of Owerri, people have now discovered that this is mere political allegation and propaganda. And you know, allegation and propaganda have lifespan. When they expire and you have nothing to say you lose credibility, and the man you leveled all the allegations against will begin to rise on that crest. So, I thank God Almighty that I did the tight things. Today I wouldn’t have had anybody to defend me. But my happiness today is that there is nothing anybody has alleged against me today that has been proven.
Ans: I believe in doggedness. I believe in starting something and finishing it, because my God is a Finishing God. I don’t start something and leave it half way. Like I told you, I didn’t just emerge as Governor from nowhere. I ran for the Senate in 1999 and people knew. I ran for Governor in 2003 and people knew. I also ran for governor in 2007. I don’t know what you mean by how it happened, but it just happened. I ran for an election, I ran one of the most professional election and I had my own strategy.
My being Governor was not one percent accidental; I knew what was going to happen. I laid out my plans clearly. I have never done anything in this world without planning and without doing my SWOT analysis, without looking at what could happen, without looking at moves that my opponents could make. And then I banked on something and it worked. I had vision. I had vision for my people. I had vision for the development of our state. I had vision for the people. I had vision to create an economy, vision to create employment. I had vision to take our people higher, to make sure that we operate in a clean and green environment, because cleanliness is next to godliness. And then I believe in law and order. Throughout my regime you could not see anywhere there was thugery.
There was no political assassination in Imo throughout my tenure as Governor. Nobody’s house was burnt throughout my tenure as Governor. No opponent, and I repeat, no opponent was chased away from Imo State. I allowed the political space for everyone. I was a pure democrat and I still remain a democrat. I believe in the philosophy of my party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Our policy was purely on the people, the survival of the people, because you must survive, you must eat before you talk about other things. We must begin to create jobs for our teaming masses. And that was typically how to encapsulate our policy while in the Government House.
Q: You had a vision before you became Governor. As a Governor, were you able to put your vision to work? Were you able to live your dream of the Imo State you wanted? Were you able to make it come through?
Ans: We did, but we still have an unfinished business. The critical thing in this country is that we must begin to educate our people. Policies that can rekindle the economy, policies that can create the kind of societies and economy we are looking for usually take long gestation period. If you want to build for the masses rather than build for the mob, if you want to build for the mob I can begin to build town halls. These days I have learnt that people can even award road contracts with mouth and I people will begin to tar roads. Those are not critical things. If you want create an economy, if you want to rekindle an economy, if you want to create a system where people will be employed, you require a long period of time. You must put the governance structure in place.
There are certain things that require law. I listened to a Lagos State Commissioner for Transport speaking to the media about the banning of okada, and he talked about law in Lagos State banning okada, and I was so happy. In Imo State, when we took the bull by the horn, when first term governors were afraid to take certain decisions, we banned okada. There was a law banning okada. When we launched the Clean and Green Initiative there was law backing it. When we set up the ENTRACO, there was law backing it. When we set up the Imo Roads Maintenance Agency (IRROMA) there was law backing it. Everything we did, and you know the process of making laws: there must be a bill to the House and there will be public hearing.
For example, we set up a refinery. A refinery is not what you use your mouth and award the contract and it would begin to happen. First of all, we acquired the land from Ohaji/Egbema people, 250 hecters. We got the President of Nigeria and took our report to him. We led a delegation of Igbo leaders to him, and then the President gave us an approval to partner with NNPC and they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with us. We got the foreign investors who wanted an account of Imo State. We had to prepare an account of Imo State, from 10 years before we came in. We got it right. And there are other approvals you need to get to partner with people.
These things take quite some time. There are certain approvals you would need from the National Assembly, and they have to be presented to the National Assembly and the National Assembly would have to sit and deliberate. So, anybody that thinks we did not realize our dream may be right in one and wrong in the other way. But that does not stop us from going about to do those things that would keep our people alive.
Let me give you one example: in 2009, because of the breaking of oil pipelines, our OPEC quarter which was 2 million barrels, we were barely making 700,000 barrels per day. But in Imo we sat down and said that our place is a rural place and we don’t have industries that are paying tax. And if we begin to lay off our people, and graduates are coming up everyday; what do we do to make sure that money circulates in the rural communities. Instead of laying off people we decided that we would employ. That was how we began the process of creating 10,000 graduate jobs and 30,000 non-graduate jobs. And remember that there was a rumour, even a newspaper wrote an editorial on it, that how could a state government create 10,000 graduate jobs in this condition, that it was practically impossible. But because we wanted the son of the poor to be able to get graduate job without knowing a commissioner, without knowing anybody, we decided that we must hire an international consultancy firm, and we brought in KPMG.
Working with KPMG and our civil service commission, they decided that they were going to conduct examinations using the internet, and then in my wisdom I said no, that if you bring our people together in one place for the exam, there would be cataclysm. We created a center in Kaduna, a center in Lagos, four centers in Imo, a center in Abia and one in Rivers State and asked Imo people to apply. We advertised it widely. While this process was going on we were being flogged left, right and center, everywhere, to the extent that someone even went to court to stop the process. These guys took the examination and it was marked instantly and the process of recruitment started. It was not done in 2010. The process started in 2009. And then we gave them these graduate jobs, permanent employment. 250 of them were moved to the judiciary, and our goal was that at the age of 30-something we would be able to produce judges from them. But the most economic advantage of that programme was that at the end of every month we would have N450m pumped into the rural communities by salaries of these graduates, so that our people could be eating.
And we created IRROMA, to make sure that 16,000km roads would be maintained. And then we looked at the situation that people must access our state capital and the idea that you could access the capital from any community in 40 minutes. Before we came in, from Ogboko, the hometown of the present Governor, you would require two and half hours to get to Owerri. And you can confirm that. We got an internal company, because of the erosion prone areas, to do the 32 km road, linking the Governor’s village to Isiekenesi, from Isiekenesi to Osina, with six bridges. When we did that we started opening up the rural areas. We made sure that every access to the capital was properly designed, the drainage properly channeled and the road properly done so that it would become a state capital. We achieved all those ones. We created employment and we started these key projects that would revolutionize our economy. We got foreign investors and went to the capital market. And you know what it means, the discipline required to go to the capital market. We did all that and got the money.
But you know that out of the N18B we got from the capital market, not the N100bn people were talking about and going to sue us in court, we left 13.3bn in an interest yielding account in UBA which we handed over to my successor.
Q: (Cuts in) N13bn?
Ans: Yes.. N13.3bn in an interest yielding account in UBA and I handed over to my successor to continue the Wonder Lake project for which we had employed 2,000 people. But unfortunately – is it fortunately, I don’t know – when you leave office it is no longer your business what they do with money. The Governor applied for change of purpose and SEC granted him change of purpose for that money. That is it. No one can accuse us that we did not achieve our goals.
Q: Your opponents also accuse you of leaving uncompleted projects in the state.
Ans: I took over from someone, His Excellency Chief Achike Udenwa. Achike Udenwa, for example, started the Annual Free Medical Service, where he brought medical doctors from all over the world who traversed the 19 general hospitals in the state conducting examinations and perform surgeries. I did not stop that project. I continued it and multiplied into two. He started the teaching hospital, in fact, he commissioned the teaching hospital, but I continued it. He left about 8 roads when I came on board, including the Amaraku/Nwangele Road and the Ugiri/Isiala Mbano/Ehime/Mbais, and all those roads. I continued those roads. It was Achike Udenwa that started the Concorde Road leading to the Secretariat. I completed that road. You see, it is continuity.
Now, if we had continued the process of the refinery by now we would have gone half way. The Federal Government luckily was in the process and even allocated two marginal oil fields to Imo State for the partnership for the refinery. Because of that refinery the Federal Government brought in certain projects that would help the movement for the realization of that project. We brought in a housing estate, we got Marine Police. We got Naval Base, the dredging of the Lake, building a port, plus the Wonder Lake, everything, because of that refinery. And those who invested from overseas did so because of the refinery. So that place would have been an industrial hub, and by now it would have created a lot of jobs. So, these are projects that require thinking, vision and project management to push.
So, if you look at the three critical projects that we undertook: the refinery, the Wonder Lake Resort and Conference Center and the Inner Ring Road; for example, the Inner Ring Road was not our design. The man that designed Owerri City, Fingerhat and Partners – Dr. Fingerhat was 82 years when I brought him to Imo State in 2007, and after launching the Clean and Green Initiative on the 10th of August, he went round the town with his two sons and said: “This is one of the best cities I have ever designed, a twin city”. He said that our state capital is the only city in Nigeria that is in a valley and that there were 62 manholes designed in the city and that all have been blocked. And that if you don’t open them regularly and dredge our river, the Nworie River, the city would become a big disappointment and would have environmental problem. One is that it would be washed away; second is that you will not do any road that would stand the test of time. We went ahead to open the 62 manholes, and when it rained people were shocked and surprised, whether we used medicine. We started maintaining the structure.
The man came and said that if we did not achieve anything – there are three ring roads in Imo State that make it one city state: the Inner Ring Road, the Outer Ring Road and the Outer-Outer. The Inner Ring Roads has five flyovers designed with it. The Outer Ring Road would connect about seven local governments and the Outer-Outer would link 19 out of the 27 local government areas in the state. And we started the Outer-Outer, the Inner Ring Road and the Outer Ring Road with the flyovers. And part of the fund was to come from the money we got from the Stock Exchange, which was cheap money. We never went to the commercial banks to borrow, except when we required bridging financing, a smaller amount which we paid, because as a Governor, you have only four years - three dry seasons – to do your constructions, so you can as well take bridging fund and begin to work and pay back as you get your allocation. That was exactly what we did. We never abandoned any projects. We continued the projects of others, and all the key projects which we started were not projects meant for the mob or for people to clap for us. They were projects meant to support our economy.
When we arrived in 2007 the hotels in Imo had about 2,000 rooms and by the time we left in 2011 we had about 10,000 hotel rooms with about 90% occupancy. And you know what that means to our economy. By 6am our women sweepers had completed sweeping Imo State and return home to take their children to school. There was law and order. People respected everybody and money was circulating. We made sure that 90% of the contracts we did in Imo were given to local contractors. When we were working in rural areas we made sure that contractors and suppliers came from that area.
Q: Yet you handed over N28bn?
Ans: More than N28bn.
Qut: But what was the debt profile of the state when you left?
Well, I don’t know what you mean by debt profile. When I handed over that money what was outstanding in the debt profile of Imo State was not more than N3bn which was a kind of bridging facility. I didn’t borrow money from any commercial bank other than bridging financing which we paid off. And again, what may surprise you is that out of the N18bn we got from the Capital Market we had already paid more than N7bn. We had already refunded that, about N7point-something billion.
Q: Out of the N18bn…
Ans: (Cuts in) Yes. Out of the N18bn. We had already paid off. It is as good as that, and these records are there at the Stock Exchange. It is not a hidden thing. It is there at the bank. You see, everything we do we must be evidential, because government is supposed to be a deity, and anything that comes out of the mouth of a governor must be the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Q: One of the big issues which analysts have said over these years that cost you your reelection was the accusation that you flogged a Reverend Father, that you ordered a Reverend Father to your Government House and you flogged the Reverend Father. I’m not sure you quite denied it.
Ans: I denied it. We did everything humanly possible to say that it was capital lie.
Q: Did you flog this Reverend Father or any Reverend Father during your tenure?
Ans: Ok, let me answer you directly. I did not. I never. I would have never. I couldn’t have. It was practically impossible for me to, looking at my upbringing as a child. And I call people’s attention to Exodus 20:16, that no one should levy false accusation on his fellow human being. But let me draw your attention to what happened in one Sunday in August 2014. As I was celebrating my birthday I decided to worship at the Adoration Ministry in Enugu. And remember that it was Father Mbaka who popularized a song that I flogged a Reverend Father. And today I call Father Mbaka a leader, a true man of God. Because in the whole world it is difficult, if not impossible, to see any leader say, “I made a mistake. I was deceived.”
Q: Did Father Mbaka say to you that that information was wrong?
Ans: Yes.. He said it and it was publicized. It is everywhere. I worshipped at the church. I worshipped there for my birthday thanksgiving, and he told the church that he has realized after investigation, after speaking one on one with the Reverend Father who now told him that he didn’t see Ohakim, that if he sees Ohakim he wouldn’t know whether Ohakim is tall or short. He won’t even recognize me, that he sees me only on TV or newspaper. That “Ohakim never flogged me. Ohakim never touched me. Ohakim never ordered anybody to flog me. Nobody even flogged me.” And then I have taken it.
Q: Do you have what you are telling me documented?
Ans: Yes. It is on tape. It is on YouTube now. People that go on YouTube can see it. It is on YouTube. I think some radio and television stations have broadcast it. And most of the newspapers have published it. I have been vindicated.
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