…says contest for Anambra South Senatorial District not about zoning
Ahead of the conduct of the bye election for Anambra South Senatorial District, one of the aspirants in APGA and CEO Sea Horse Lubricant Ltd Chief Ebuka Onunkwo spoke to Okey Maduforo on his ambition and the political structure in the country.
Why did you choose to leave your flourishing business to go into politics?
All hands must be on deck to correct the anomalies in Nigeria, so it is time good people went into politics to contribute in reshaping the affairs of this country for its socio-economic development of our.
If you leave it to the so-called typical politicians, whatever decisions they take affect all of us. So we have to stop sitting on the fence and fully come in to make the change that we need.
Given the brand of politics being played in Nigeria, people feel that you are too decent to play politics
Yes that is why I said that it is time we went into politics irrespective of how dirty politics is described; we have to come in and make the difference. We have to make people know that a decent person can play politics.
I have to stand my ground to ensure that nobody pushes me to do things against my faith or what is against my people.
Instead of me to do that, I will do everything to convince my people on the best way to follow.
Politics doesn’t have to be a matter of manipulation, politics doesn’t have to be going against the law or that the best politician is the one that wins through any means available to the person.
My brand of politics is not about manipulating things but about the people and what they stand to benefit from the process but by leading by example.
It is not for personal gains because God has already blessed me; what I want is to go in there to better the lives our people in Anambra South Senatorial District.
Why the choice of APGA that is seen as a lone ranger party?
This is because the party has an ideology that is similar to my own political ideology, and I think that the party will not take the state to greater heights and to another level.
It is not about being a national political party it is not about how many states are controlled by APGA .
For now we are talking about Anambra South Senatorial District and I am using the platform that will enable me to realise my dreams and ambitions .
I am going there to make laws and policies that will impact positively on the people of Anambra South Senatorial District and it doesn’t matter the political party, and that platform is the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
During the last elections BVAS and IREV were discarded, how confident are you that your election will not suffer the same fate ?
My interest is to ensure that I get massive support irrespective of what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) wants to do.
What is important is a good support base and being on ground so that if they use B VAS or not, you are sure of winning.
The election is being conducted by INEC and it is up to the Commission to state how it will conduct the election and not for the political parties or candidates to dictate to INEC what to do .
Some members of APGA are protesting that you are new and want to highjack the ticket of the party?
Well, any person that says that I am not old in the party is a new person in the party.
I started in APGA during the time of Peter Obi administration and I also worked for the former Governor Willie Obiano, and they all visited me here in my home .
They did not come to me because I belong to the opposition but because I am a member of APGA. Besides, I have been investing in the party and I am a major stakeholder in Ekwusigo local government area when it has to do with politics.
If they are real members of APGA, they will not be saying what they are saying.
Zoning has become an issue in Anambra South Senatorial District and the people of Nnewi South are saying that it is their turn ?
I don’t think that the contest for Anambra South Senatorial District has anything to do with zoning.
The Uba family has produced two senators such as Dr Ugochukwu Uba and Andy Uba, and there is another Uba that I heard is interested.
While they were there, no one talked about zoning so why now? If people say that it is the turn of Nnewi South how about Ekwusigo local government area?
Ekwusigo local government area has never produced a senator since it was created and nobody is making noise about zoning.
This is also to tell you that zoning cannot come in now and if that is the case we should be considering Ekwusigo local government area.
Someone talked about Sen Nnamdi Eriobuna as filling Ekwusigo’s slot and I tell you that as it were Ihembosi, my town, was under the Ihiala local government area and not Ekwusigo local government area and since the creation of Ekwusigo local government area we have not produced a senator from Anambra South Senatorial District.
Besides your own election, Anambra will be holding gubernatorial poll and Soludo is in the contest; what are his chances?
Very bright chance because Gov Charles Soludo is on ground and is working. If I am to score him over 10, I will score him nine over 10.
Recently he was rated the best governor in the area of fiscal financial management and he is one of the best governors in Nigeria.
Some people may not like him because he is not going about throwing money out. He is not an extravagant spender because he is careful and knows where to channel the resources of Anambra state.
He is not ready to go about sharing money to people because his experience as the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria is being put to use, he doesn’t make promises that he cannot honour.
He is not a flippant politician that goes about making empty promises.
But it is being alleged that Soludo is interested in Aguata and is neglecting Nnewi South, Nnewi North and Ekwusigo local government areas?
As you were coming to my house you saw a road being constructed by Soludo, that road is stone based and it has never seen asphalt in the last 100 years but you can see what is happening.
The road starts from Ozubulu- in Ekwusigo local government area passing through Ihembosi my home to Upkor Nnewi South local government area.
The road passed through two local government areas and three communities and it is being done by Gov Soludo.
There is another road under construction from Nnewi North to Ekwusigo to Okija in Ihiala local government area. There is another one from Atani in Ogbaru local government area to Ozubulu to Ihiala under Soludo administration.
So one cannot say that Soludo neglected our area and is working only in Aguata local government area.
Being a businessman, what can you do to improve commerce and industry in Anambra South Senatorial District?
What many of us don’t understand is that the primary duty of a lawmaker is to make laws for the development of the state and their area and not embarking on projects .
It is the duty of the Executive arm of government and not the duty of the legislative arm of government.
So I am going to make laws for the people and these are laws that would improve the economy and industrial sector of the Senatorial District.
Those laws would help them have easier access to funds to do business and also there shall be laws that will improve on the power sector because no economy can thrive without power supply or energy and that has been the problemsl of the industrial sector.
However if the opportunity comes that I can do projects who am I to say no? We also have Constituency projects that we present during appropriation, and what the lawmakers do is to suggest projects in his Constituency or Senatorial District and they do not give the funds for the project to the lawmakers to spend but it is captured in the appropriation bill.
But how would you handle insecurity in your Senatorial District because that is where we have problems?
Interestingly my, Gov Soludo has been doing well in the area of fighting insecurity and you will agree with me that before he came in we couldn’t stay here and feel free talking.
But so far insecurity has reduced drastically because of what he is doing and we, on our own part, are helping by assisting the local security network and the conventional security outfits such as Police and other security operatives in the state.
Another aspect that is very important is the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who is under detention.
I add my voice to call for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and I know with that insecurity will be a thing of the past .
Those boys inside the bush are claiming that they are there because of the detention of Kanu and it is my belief that if he is released these stories of kidnappings and burnings of police stations will stop, and if anyone is seen inside the bush he will have to explain what he is doing there .
Since the Courts have granted him bail what are we waiting for than to grant Nnamdi Kanu freedom?
That may have given rise to the demands and a bill at the National Assembly for the creation of regions and more states in the South East…
I totally subscribe to the issue of Regionalism. This is because with that, the regions will use their resources to develop themselves and that is part of resource control and restructuring that we are talking about.
There is no region in Nigeria that does not have one or two things that they can use to develop themselves.
We used to have the groundnut peramids in the North, we have zinc, we have gold in Zamfara.
We have cocoa and rubber in the West and Midwest, vwe have palm oil and crude oil in the South East and South South and these are important resources that can build the regions.
We are depending more on oil and that is not good as it doesn’t make economic sense to have a mono economy.
Countries are diversifying and exploiting other ways to grow their economy but we are here depending only on the crude oil.
Anyone that is against it is an enemy to the socio-economic development of our country, those who don’t want it are those who may have been feeding from the status quo.
Also, the South East needs more states, at least two more states because in 1970, we had the Eastern region which has been divided into nine states .
But South East has only five states while the least regions have at least six states and that means more federal constituencies and Senatorial Districts for those zones.
That also means more local government areas and more state constituencies.
When you come to the South East we only have 15 Senatorial Districts and a state has 27 local government areas like Imo State, some states have 17 local government areas while Anambra has 21 local government areas.
But if you go to the North, one state has 48 local government areas and that would cancel all the local government areas in Anambra and Imo states.
Some have thirty local government areas while the South East is small and that is why when issues are put to voting at the National Assembly, the majority carries the vote and the majority would try to frustrate whatever that is not coming to them but if it is to their favour they will vote in favour of that and that is really unfortunate.
