As the Anambra gubernatorial election draws near, the candidate of the Young Democratic Party (YPP) Sir Paul Chukwuma spoke to Okey Maduforo on contentious issues in the polity. Excerpts:

Anambra politics has introduced a new episode which was made manifest in the faceoff between Soludo’s wife and APC’s Running Mate, Uche Ekwunife, what is your take?

It is unfortunate and shameful that our politics has gone down to this level but like I said earlier I am not interested in gossips, I am not interested in name calling or name dropping and going into non issues based campaign.

I am not interested in such matters that have no positive effect on the masses, that is the people of Anambra State, and that is why I don’t talk about my fellow contestants. I am interested in explaining to Anambra people why I have offered myself to serve them.

I am interested in looking at the issues that have to do with the election in Anambra and the governance of the state, so, I would not want to occupy myself with issues that are of no meaning to the people of Anambra.

We saw a military formation of soldiers moving towards your house with tanks and recently the candidate of another party had an issue in Abuja; is this deliberate?

I am not aware of the presence of any military formation or tanks at the junction towards my house. But given the level of insecurity in Anambra State and the way and manner people are being killed and kidnapped as well as the collapse of the security architecture, the soldiers now have more road blocks here and there, and at every spot, they are there.

I do not know who sent them neither do I know how they are operating but I think they are being proactive in the fight against insecurity, and this shows the incapability of the current APGA led government in ensuring the safety of lives and property.

This first line charge of any given government is the protection of the lives of his people and their properties and today the Soludo led government is using their own internally formed security to molest those he swore to protect and that may have informed the presence of soldiers.

I am not alone in this race because God is with and I believe that at the end of the election I will emerge as the next governor of Anambra State. I am not contesting to make comics or to just move about in the name of contesting election because I am contesting to win the election.

Come March next year, I would be sworn in as the governor of Anambra State. As far as I am concerned I will always speak the truth about what is going on in my state and if I want to govern Anambra and I cannot say my mind on any issue for fear of what may happen, then I am not telling myself and the masses the truth. So, this so called fear about what would be done to the opposition is not my concern; I have come out to serve.

You had issues at the Onitsha hospital where you came to see victims of the shootings at the market and government called you a meddlesome interloper: could you tell us your story?

In my mind, I have the ability to understand basic English words and terminologies. When you say the word meddlesome interloper, I am taken aback and this is because, I am from Anambra State and my aspiration is to serve my people.

We are supposed to be a society that is governed by the rule of law and we woke up with the news that about four to five persons who were innocent Anambra people and traders right inside the market were shot by militias.

Again we are talking about agencies of the state government that are not supposed to bear arms but here in Anambra, these characters not only bear arms but also prohibited arms such as you see right inside the market, and some of those characters and elements bear AK-47 riffles.

Their activities which are illegal I must say resulted in the untimely death of a number of people from Anambra State. Hearing about the incident, who else would be more concerned? Who else would be more interested than me who has offered himself to serve the people of Anambra as a governor? I should be concerned as a true son of Anambra State who is interested in the liberation of Anambra people.

So I had no option than to turn my convoy to go to the market and already things were getting out of hand and we were hearing many things . I don’t think that two wrongs can make a right and I thought that it was appropriate for us to calm nerves and in the course of debating and reacting over the senseless killing of innocent people we should not take the laws into our hands.

On getting to the market, the relations of these victims and their colleagues briefed us and we were able to calm them down and we preached to them that regardless of how provoked they may be, taking the laws into their hands was not the best response to the incident. We made it clear to them that such a thing would not happen again because you cannot arm untrained militai and then watch them kill innocent people and this is condemnable.

We were told that some of the victims who are alive were taken to the Onitsha General Hospital but they had not been attended to due to the demands by the hospital management that they should make some deposit. We had to proceed to the hospital to find out what we could do to help. On getting there we were still being briefed by the relatives of the victims who were crying and lamenting and the next thing we saw was that the management started closing the doors and the windows.

I told them that we wee not interested in going into the hospital wards but to make deposits and do the needful for the victims to be treated. A young man who the bullet hit some part of his head needed immediate attention because the hospital management said that they did not have the necessary facilities to treat him and he needs an ambulance to take him to a better hospital.

We made available a hospital ambulance made payments but to bring him out of the hospital, they refused to open the hospital for the young man to be taken out for treatment. It was then that I said ‘no! I can’t allow that to happen and that your responsibility as a government is the protection of lives and property.’

You went and opened fire on innocent people inside the market and people got wounded some lives were lost and you want to stop them from having proper treatment and I said, ‘this is not going to happen.’ The family members had concluded all arrangements and the necessary payments had been made for better medical services.

So they brought the young man out and he was on oxygen and like I told you before, they had closed the door and windows on the order of one young man who I was told is the Commissioner for Youths.

They even stoped us from leaving the hospital premises. The gate was blocked by the Commissioner for Youths and this lasted for a long time and a woman who is his relative was in front. The ambulance and my convoy wete following her when the gate was blocked.

We also gathered that the Commissioner for Youths had earlier been making calls to the Udo Ga Chi Security Operations for back up but after some time we were allowed to leave the hospital and take the young man to another hospital. You see this speaks volume of our society and state under the APGA led government. The issue of zoning is still being canvased and the governor said you cannot be governor because of Zoning…

Are we still talking about zoning when we are more focused on good governance? Would the zoning better the lives of our people and provide security and provide basic social amenities?

Zoning has become mundane and no longer trends and what is more important is to give our people good governance that they can believe in and bear testimony of what government is doing for them and not which zone has the turn to become governor.

I am more particular about having an independent legislative arm of government and not the one the governor will put inside his pocket. All the three arms of government must be independent and function in accordance with the constitution without interference.

Today we do not have governance at the local government level and those you see are just taking instructions from the Executive arm of government.

Under my watch, the local government allocations will go to them and they have that right to work with those funds and not the state government hijacking the funds meant for the 21 local government areas. That is what counts and not the talk about zoning which most of the time do not produce the best in our state.