Dr Nkem Okeke the Deputy Governor of Anambra State talks about rebuilding the country, developments in Anambra, why there’s no need for separation or segregation in Nigeria and more in this explosive interview.
In this no-holds-barred interview with BCM, Dr Nkem Okeke, Deputy Governor of Anambra state, speaks openly about structural reforms within Nigeria, developments in Anambra, and the urgency of unification in Nigeria. Dr Okeke who first served as Anambra State Commissioner for Economic Planning, and again as Anambra State Commissioner for Works and Transport in the administration of Governor Peter Obi also discusses the necessity of being an upright citizen when in a leadership position. A native of Enugwu-Ukwu, Okeke a father of five and a grandfather, earned his PhD in Monetary economics, and headed the Economics department, at Awka Nnamdi Azikiwe University where he once lectured. Enjoy the interview.
BCM:
Your excellency, you have been in politics for a long time, and you were the former commissioner for works under His Excellency Peter Obi, now that you are the deputy governor, what do you have to say about the development of Anambra state.
H.E
Anambra state has strived to move forward with the successive governments being in place from Chris Ngige and now Peter Obi and all administrations. There has been progress, but I believe that we can do better, Anambra can do a lot more and be one of the talked about states in the federation. You know I can’t talk about specifics of this administration there are certain things I don’t want to say but go ahead and ask then we can always address them in bullet points.
BCM:
Anambra is the only state under APGA for now so it’s like are the lowest opposition. so, how is the relationship between APGA and the Federal government?
APGA is good, it’s the same thing as other State’s relations that they have with the Federal government, the relationship is not based on party affiliation of course and we do say that there are some advantages that the same party gets though, you know doors are open for you, I think if any State with a different party does what is right with the Federal government, the door should be open for you to have access to the Federal government. There are certain things they cannot keep away from the state because the state is from a different party, I don’t know if you get my point, so it’s just Nigeria being what it is you can expect that there can be some small issues, small problems and sometimes when you are in the same party as the government at the centre. By and large, I don’t think that makes any difference.
BCM:
Come November there will be a gubernatorial election in Anambra state, and I believe your party is one of the parties to beat so what are the chances of your candidates?
H.E
Well, we don’t have any candidates, for now, we haven’t done any primaries so until we do primaries, then we’ll know who the candidates will be that we can now access you as a candidate, we can now access the opportunity and possibility of that candidate winning the election. Right now, nobody knows who is coming out in APGA we don’t know who is coming out in PDP even APC and all the major parties too we don’t know, But I believe because we are the incumbent party in government, our chances ought to be better.
BCM:
There’s insecurity everywhere in Nigeria, we have a lot of killings in Anambra state, the former CBN governor Charles Soludo was attacked, and his escorts were killed, herdsmen killing scores of people and cultists on a rampage and you are the No. 2 man in the state. What is your government doing to curtail this insecurity?
H.E
Well, the government is doing its best is trying to be one of a kind to curtail this insecurity in the state. Insecurity is all over the country, in the North-East, North-West, in the South. The greatest challenge the country has is economic hardship, if there were jobs for the teeming youths, and somebody is gainfully employed, that person will not have any reason to be in any form of criminality, all we need to do is how to change the system and bring about progress and developments, to be able to provide jobs for people. If people can get jobs there won’t be any form of criminality, Of course, the issue of religious politics has its factor and that comes out because people are hungry people are desperate to survive so they get to listen to the bad criminals in the society causing so many critical things to happen.
BCM:
Ok, now look at the IPOB they are calling for Biafra, now in the Southwest, Sunday Igboho and the rest are calling for Oduduwa Republic. Do you see Nigeria still being together or do you think Nigeria should go just go our separate ways?
H.E:
Nigeria most likely will be together, I don’t think there’s any reason for us to go our separate ways and like I said the problem is hardship, injustice that’s why people think differently. Yoruba is calling for Oduduwa, honestly, I don’t think that is our problem, the problem is all about leadership how do we provide the right leaders, government and leaders. When I say leaders, it is not necessarily that you must be a BSC. holder, you must not necessarily have all the degrees to be a leader it’s all about the sincerity of purpose, what makes you think serving as a governor will make you happy?
The problem we have is that people come into leadership and talk about building roads, building hospitals and putting infrastructures in place, but that is not what leadership is about, leadership is about people, about human beings. How do you move your people from one stage of life to the next stage, how does that man that has a family feed his family? How does he take care of his children? How does he send them to school? How do you empower people? How do you increase their wealth?
I’m not saying that building roads and schools are not a necessity, they are, but that is saddled by the department of public works or ministry of housing or whatever you want to call them we should not ascribe to leadership with such ideas in our head. Our idea should be to think outside the box what is it that I need to do so that when I leave, I know I have left a legacy the legacy is in human being, in human capital, how do people feel about you when you leave is what matters, you build roads you build schools? No! Think about creating institutions, that is what stands the test of time. If you look at the United States for instance what happened during the last election the only reason why the United States survived is because of its institutions without that maybe today Donald Trump would have still been the president of the United States so we must think in that direction, we must think outside the box. It’s not just about I’ll build a road here, I’ll build a road there, I’ll build a stadium or whatever. It is to think about what makes the life of a small man better, you must think that if he can have a good job and train his children so that when they are grown, they will have jobs, they will have the opportunities in them to grow and have their own families that is our problem and if we can do that, I can tell you insecurity in this nation will go down.
BCM:
Sir. You were a former Head of Department of the economics department, you were also a lecturer and a great economist, sir do you think Nigeria economy is going forward?
H.E:
I think there’s a lot to be done, and we must move our dependence from one commodity- OIL. The value of crude oil is diminishing if you look at all the developed countries, they are thinking about alternative sources of energy they are looking at clean energy, solar power, wind power, hydropower, things they can fuel with the climate, that’s where they are going. If you listen to some of these manufacturing companies talking about having electric cars in the next 10 years in the next 20 years if we are still stuck with our oil, we are not going anywhere we must come up with an idea or a way to be able to phase out all and be able to look out for other ways.
We are blessed with human capitals and other natural resources all we need to do is make those work for us we have a bunch of gas that we seem to be burning now we are not putting it into productive use these are things we need to do and hopefully if we can use this soft resources to produce power we can industrialize. The greatest challenge we have in our state is power, if you go to Nnewi, it’s an industrial belt but they can’t do much cause of sustainable power. If we have power in Nnewi, I can tell you that Nnewi will be a manufacturing giant in West Africa if not in Africa. Of course, one of the things we are known for here in Anambra is agricultural land and our land is arable, you can grow anything, but growing stuff is not adding value, if you grow maize that’s not adding value. If you sell maize in the market now, why not think about processing that maize think about turning the maize into something, package it domestically and then export it that’s what we talk about adding value. The value chain we are not doing all of that of course there has been progress in our state when we started, we had 90000 metric tons of rice that was produced in Anambra but now we are producing over 360000 metric tons of rice annually in our state but we can do more because we have land, we must talk about increasing productivity per hectare, factor using good rice seeds that we can grow to increase the yield then we must produce, we must have more mills to process the rice.
That’s not just by building mills in urban areas we might sometimes go to rural areas, those farm settlements where rice is grown and set up our processing mills, if not, have collection points in those rural areas and make sure you have roads that can now be used to transport. You cannot expect people to carry rice in baskets on their heads, we must have vehicles that will transport those grains to the processing centre, so many opportunities. We grow vegetables here, we grow maize, we grow cassava, these are products that have a lot of use and other types of product that you can process and apply them into other products that you can export and make foreign exchange. We must remove that dependence on going to Abuja to collect FAGs, we must remove that.
I listened to a video by the governor of Edo state Godwin Obaseki when he was talking about our increased dependence on oil and how we seem to be borrowing more, we can’t keep on borrowing to pay salaries, you don’t get much when you borrow to pay salary. If you borrow money, it must be on investment that will yield enough to pay for the interest of the borrowing which we are not doing, so we are burdening our children and our future society with debt they can’t even pay so we have a lot to do.
People talk about restructuring, yes, I know restructuring is good but that won’t solve our problem. We must change the psyche and the mindset of our people that if you find yourself in a position of leadership do what is right, leave a legacy. I tell my people that work with me to watch me, if I do right, do right. If you set an example, people get to follow. The greatest challenge we have in this country is we have an executive arm that will work for years and another four years, eight years that’s the maximum. You have to leave the legislature every four years they run for an election. But in the judiciary, if you appoint a bad judge, we’re in trouble. He stays there for a while for how many years before he retires you can see him giving consistent bad judgement because he is being compromised so we must find a way to change the judiciary system.
The difference between us and the top Nations is not much, it’s not like they’re better than us, but they have checks and balances in their society that says if you get caught committing a crime you get prosecuted and you get jailed but here it doesn’t happen. People get caught in criminality here, they bribe the police, they bribe the judges, and nothing happens, and Life goes on and when people see that happening the next person that comes says Mr A didn’t go to jail so who says I’m going to go to jail so let me continue committing atrocities I will get out of it and that’s what we need to fix.
I don’t have the answers to how we can do that but let’s start with the cause of restructuring the society, the country and see if we can change our electoral process so that the masses are well educated to look for the right people, right now they are looking at it from the angle of when is my person entering so they will vote for their person, not that the person is qualified to run but just because the person is from their place and don’t blame them because if you look at the precedence that has been set in the past it’s only when your person enters that you begin to ‘chop’. What happens is that let’s get our electoral process correct if the masses put a goat there let the goat stay for 4 years after that goat finishes you put another goat, if we keep on putting goat one day, we will stop putting goat we will begin to start putting sheep that’s to me what needs to happen now when that will happen, I don’t know, there’s lack of discipline people don’t care but you don’t blame them. If you look at civil servants, the corruption is high why because their salaries are not commensurable with the work, they are doing so they get involved in all kinds of inappropriate behaviours to sustain their families so it’s a fighting situation.
I don’t know where we’re going to end up if you look at the issue of insecurity what’s happening all over you know the END SARS situation was scary because I believed that if that process was sustained for a little while this country would have been in trouble now we have the issue of the IPOB In the south fighting with the military, ESN fighting the military all these things keep on boiling like a cake of gunpowder waiting for a match to light it up and it will become anarchy they will simply be anarchy in this country so I keep on praying that something will happen, I don’t have the magic to make it happen, but something needs to happen for people to have a good feeling. You must feel good inside, to have hope for tomorrow and be able to tell yourself that yes tomorrow will be better. Presently there is a high degree of hopelessness there’s nothing that seems to be ready set for you, trying to get into university is a problem, trying to get a job is a problem, you see applications for jobs but by the end, it is not given to people by merit, it is who you know or who you don’t know so it’s a worrisome situation and I hope that things will change.
BCM:
Your excellency, in Nigeria, politics is very expensive it’s only those who have the money that can present themselves for elective positions now picking a gubernatorial form from a party costs 22 million to 28 million, so I believe the political class have indirectly made the electoral process only for the rich.
H.E:
I agree with you and that’s why people that run for positions end up trying to make back the money they spent and not doing the work. I was in Lagos about 2 to 3 days ago when I spoke with the Anambra traders and I said to them sitting in Lagos and expecting your containers to come in and you call yourself a rich man, a billionaire. Money is coming, containers are coming, you’re making money, but you fail to realise that one mistake and your container becomes contraband. You’re messed up that you must get involved in politics, I said to them see you guys are millionaires 10 of you 20 of you can decide who the governor in Anambra will be. How? 10 of you can contribute money you know each person brings a reasonable amount of money and then set up a consultancy to look at all the gubernatorial aspirants and invite them, ask them who are you what’s your background what do you intend to do for Anambra tell us what your job is, what are you doing? Where do you come from? What’s your educational qualification. You don’t need to be a PhD holder but who are you tells us about you and your plan for Anambra.
Once you go through all those set of people without having any sense of nepotism, pick the candidate that you think will move our state forward and back that candidate with serious money and that money is not for the candidates to pay you back you are just doing it because you want your state to be better, if your state is better, you can invest in your state your money will get better, your children in Anambra will grow and have jobs that will be ready for them when they come out of school and that doesn’t happen because you find people spending 200000000 on useless things spending money on building houses where you don’t live, buying cars that you are not going to use. Come together as a group and then install the governor. Do that first, second or third time, the system will reset itself and people begin to listen and look for the right candidate, not just people that will come and throw money away. If you remove that borrowing or looking for money then people that are qualified can come out and say yes, I can do this job just give me the opportunity, I don’t have the money, back me with your money, don’t give me your money because you want me to pay you back, give me the money and expect me to do good things to your state. The problems that we have is that society leaves people in leadership to do all kinds of atrocity, and nobody questions them, when you ‘settle’ then, nobody talks. The clergyman, the traditional rulers, the stakeholders, don’t speak, nobody speaks, people just sit and watch the corruption at high heavens, things are just happening, and nobody seems to care. But no, the governor is a servant of the people, he is just there to serve the people and nothing else. Leave a name that when you go, people will say this man did a good job. My greatest worry today as a deputy governor is how people see me, what will people say about me when I step down as deputy governor? If I pack millions of naira and stay away, what am I going to do with the money? People die every day, tomorrow when you die, you only get a 6 by 4 coffin, that’s the most you get, possibly you get a knight title they call you SIR, well people are focused on the wrong things what matters is how do people remember you for your contribution to humanity? What is it that you have done to make a difference in people’s lives? That’s the key, I pray and tell my children that when people see me and they say are you Richard Okeke’s son, you say yes, and they nod their head and say your father was a man of integrity, a man of honesty and I tell them this is the legacy I should leave for you, that when people see you and say are you Jimmy Okeke’s son you say yes, or daughter you say yes, or people will say yes your father was this kind of person you did this, that’s what matters.
We’ve lost our way, somehow, we lost our values, it’s all about money, how much do you have? if you don’t have money, forget it, you shouldn’t talk, so when you have people who don’t have any value or nothing to fall back on, they want to stay in power. Everybody puts you on such high levels, but once you step down, you become former governor, former deputy governor. You must step down from the position, of course, people feel that when they amass some wealth, let them start to settle this person, I’ll settle that person and life will go on but what about the name? I will hate to be called a criminal when I leave, I will hate to be called an embezzler when I leave, I will hate to be called an opportunist when I leave, I’d rather be who I am. The greatest joy I have now today is I have a family, my children don’t disturb me they do their work, I am now a grandfather that is the joy of life, that is what makes life matter, but today it’s all about money how much do you have, how much do you have or how many cars can you drive how many cars in your convoy, how many houses do you have? You can only live in one house at one time, you can only sleep on one bed. I pray for this country, I’m worried about how we going to come out of the mess, we can do this together, we are not the only country that has a diverse set of people, look at Ghana, look at Ethiopia, look at the progress they are making in Rwanda, twenty-five years ago bodies were lying all over the street look at what the government has done for its people it’s a country that is being used as a comparison to say that and that can be achieved.
BCM:
In most states, you find out that the governor and the deputy governor sometimes are not on good terms the deputy governor does not have the power to approve a contract, so what is your relationship with his excellency Willy Obaino
H.E
Well, I don’t know anything deficient about our relationship the constitution made the work of a deputy governor very difficult, it’s just the way it is, you are the wings and caprices of the governor and there’s not much you can do about it. That’s the way it is there cannot be more than one captain in a ship, so you do the governors bidding, whatever the governor asks you to do you do, you just sit and mark time so that’s the way it is, and if that needs to be changed the constitution needs to be changed to have to assign some specific duties to the deputy governor for him to be able to contribute positively to the society. I believe that I could do more if given the opportunity you know.
BCM:
What is your plan after your tenure ends?
H.E:
First and foremost is to rest, I’ll need some time to relax and enjoy my grandchild, just remove all that hoopla about your deputy governor having security men around, people come around you, people treat you like a god when you are not, let me just live the normal life, you know, enjoy my family, just relax and don’t think about anything. Hopefully the friends I had before I became the deputy governor will still be my friends when I step down as deputy governor.
BCM:
Your excellency, you are a father, a grandfather, married with five children, how do you cope with being all that and still be a politician without it affecting the family front?
H.E:
I don’t consider myself a politician, I consider myself a professional in politics. I didn’t grow up thinking in my life that I will become a politician, I didn’t vie for this position, I was on vacation when the call came that the former chairman of the party wanted to meet me and make me the deputy gubernatorial candidate, that’s how all these things started. Of course, I called all my immediate family for a meeting, I called my kids and my wife and told them what was going on. I was afraid, I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want somebody to beat me up or killing me. My first son said to me “daddy if you feel you can contribute positively go ahead” that was it, I left where I was, I came back here and before you know it everybody was calling me Excellency the same people calling you that, will call you stupid if you fail. You are put on this pedestal, if you don’t have a good head on your shoulder it will get to your head.
I’ve tried to maintain who I am because knowing in my head that this thing is transient, that today you are deputy governor, tomorrow you are ‘former’.
BCM:
Your excellency, most politicians have a lot of scandals about them, you have been able to maintain a scandal-free life, how have you been able to do that?
H.E
It’s easy, when I was a lecturer the first day in lecture, I told my students that I don’t want their money, I don’t want their body. If you get an A, I give you an A. If you get an F, I will give you F. I don’t waste time, if God in his infinite mercy pushes you to a leadership position, you’re supposed to be above board, you are representing a group of people you want to inculcate a good attitude to life for people to see you and say yes, that is what this man is known to be and that’s all. It’s like when somebody says they are fasting, why are you fasting? You are fasting because you can fast, you should discipline yourself for that period that you are fasting because God has already blessed you by putting you in that position why can’t you say to yourself, “listen to some of this rubbish that I do, I can’t do them now, I have to stay away from them” that’s all and I maintain it that way because I know the family I come from, I know who gave birth to me, I know my pedigree, so I want to maintain that.
BCM:
Anambra is like the business hub of the South East there is INNOSON vehicles that being manufactured here so don’t you think most state governments should make it mandatory that instead of buying foreign Toyota products, there should be a way to patronize made in Nigeria vehicles?
We patronize INNOSON but one of our greatest challenges is that the Igbos tend to be very individualistic, of course after the war that helped us survive, we survived the issue of £20 because of our tendencies, we can travel out and start businesses in the countries and grow but the trouble with that is when that person dies that business does too. We must come together as a group; I keep on telling people all the time I don’t know how many times I’ve said this to INNOSON a very good manufacturer is not a small man’s business it is not a one man’s business. That you manufacture 1000 vehicles and sell you’re not in a car manufacturing business, you must spend money to do recent developments you must upgrade your cars and make them better, you must increase the quality of your vehicles, you must spend billions of naira having a spare parts inventory, you must have spare parts all over the country so that when people buy your car and their car spoils they can go to your stores and buy spare parts and change. All these things cost money so bring more people, bring more investors, you don’t need to be in charge of the business for the business to work. Find the proper people that can run the business, look at Dangote, why is Dangote doing well? Dangote is doing well because he has gone PLC calling people to invest in his business and is just raking in the dividends. If INNOSON brings more people to his business, he can have 10% of the 100-billion-naira business is better than 100% of a 1-billion-naira business. Every company that has a PLC must have strong support, there’s an accounting firm that runs and makes sure nobody is pilfering money, the problem we have in our state as Igbos is that we don’t do that, we run businesses alone.
He is the sole owner of the business and he’s making money but that money he’s making if that person is making 10 billion that person can make 100 billion if they can come together and take the risk, the risk is minimised when you come together as a group of people. They say you can break one stick of broom, but you cannot break a bunch of brooms, so we need to come together as partners in business, you don’t need to worry about who runs it, stay back. That’s one thing about the Yorubas that’s why they own many of the stocks everywhere, every time they call AGM and say all those in support say ‘aye’, 2 weeks later dividend cheque comes into his account, he checks his account, and he has made money. He travels to Switzerland with his family and enjoys himself, but you find our people struggling. An Igbo man that goes on vacation is carrying his phone to check “has my container arrived? Ford in America was first started by 1 man but now it’s not owned by one man
BCM:
Your excellency, give your friends and supporters your last word
H.E:
Your last word is that what matters in life is that family is number one. The value of your family can never be overstated family now opportunities exist for people if you have the right attitude we have some of our young boys who are interested in doing apprentice work they want the easy money the Yahoo boys you can’t sustain it one day you will get arrested and you get into trouble now going to university does not guarantee a job yes I agree we have opportunities in Anambra where people can get some skills to start a fish farm start a poultry farm do things, there are opportunities just for you to upgrade yourself don’t look for that quick cash that’s what makes people lose focus, and be content with God people know I’m a very content human being, I’m not saying this to brag, it’s just the way the Lord has made me and I’m happy with it. I don’t have to have big money in my account, I tell my children is to contribute positively to society. My first two children are married, my third son is still staying with me and my last girl is turning 21 this year. She will finish next year and is doing very well. The people you find in the United States are not smarter nor better than us, in the US, Nigerians are doing better academically even economically than any other race in the US so all we need to do is change our focus, change our leadership style, restructuring is good, but the mindset needs to be changed and the only way you will change mindset is by seeing people doing what is right and beginning to follow them.
