I am Not An Armchair Politician, Says Ikonne, PDP Governorship Candidate

Prof. Uche E. Ikonne is the immediate Vice Chancellor of the Abia State University, Uturu and 2023 gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State. In this interview with select journalists, he reeled out some of his plans for the state. Infonet9ja.com was at the parley held at the Uche Ndi Abia Campaign Office in Umuahia, the capital of the state reports.

What do you have to say about the controversy of the COVID-19 fees during your term as ABSU VC?

I decided to bear the responsibility of that unfortunate incident happened. But it was a consensus decision which the students even started. They appeared before the Senate and made their presentation. The staff and non-teaching staff unions were invited and they made their own presentations. It was taken to Council and the government and they approved it.

Students held a parley with the government at the Exco Chamber and they all agreed.

I know who escalated the matter; he has come to apologize to me. He said that he made 2.1. That he applied for a job and that he was never employed and that was why he got his men to escalate it. But I am not blaming anybody for that. I bear responsibility; that is the burden of leadership. Thank God it was not implemented, but it was for the good intention and it was not compulsory for every student. It was mere propaganda.

When was the last time you paid salary as the ABSU Vice Chancellor?

I paid salary up to April 2020 before the COVID-19 came, but by October, I signed the salary for May because by then, the school was closed down; there was no IGR (Internally Generated Revenue). In fact, ASUU had gone on strike before the closure of all institutions in the country.

Some federal institutions even at the moment have not completed payment of salaries within that period.

We depend on IGR. When the students are away and no academic activities were there, where will I get IGR to pay salary? But before I left, I signed salary which was paid in October for May. Because of the COVID-19, when I handed over, it was five months in arrears.

How are you going to accommodate the interest of stakeholders of your party?

You work with people no matter their idiosyncrasies. If you are educated and you know that people are created with different gifts and all that, effective leadership is the ability to harness all the potentials that people have to achieve a desired objective. Nobody went to school of politics. Nobody graduated as a grassroots politician. It is their behavioural pattern and our capacity as a leader is to galvanize and work with them.

We work by committee system in the university. We have professors from different disciplines, who have different perceptions of the world, but you need to work with them as chairman of the Senate; the Senate operates by Committee. No one knows it all in the university that is the background that I have come with.

I have the capacity to look at each person’s character. Each person must be useful, but be focused on your objective. I know that there are people who don’t have any other job; they don’t have any second address. They are the people running about now.

It is part of my administration to create avenues for them to benefit without changing your focus on what you want to do for Abians. Abians are my priority; service to the people. Anybody who will distract me from serving Abians wants to play with my integrity and I cannot play with my integrity and at this point of my career development, I will not do that. I owe the office to Abians and with my moral integrity, I will satisfy everybody, but you will not distract me from doing what I want to do. Ask questions, I have such a history.

Many have said that you are going to be Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s stooge?

Everybody came from somewhere. There is nobody that went and bought a form on his own; it is either a group of friends came together or corporate individuals decide to buy the form for you.

Philosophers said that success without a successor is a failure. Nobody wakes up to choose someone that will be his or her successor.

Anybody who is saying that an academic of international repute of mine is coming to be a surrogate to somebody is an abuse of intellectual capacity.

People should be wondering why I had the support of the governor when he has other people around him. I think that Abians should give him credit.

The governor has said it to people around him that if he wants someone that will come and serve him, that it is not Ikonne.

I have had a work relationship with him when I was both the Rector of the Abia State Polytechnic and ABSU VC and he knows how I carry out my duties respectfully, but achieving the purpose. He is a man with great intellectual capacity and native wisdom, and none of us is more Abian than he is.

The governor wants somebody who will do what perhaps circumstances within that period could not allow him; somebody that he knows that he will be proud of, somebody that when he gets to Abuja and looks back at his state, he will thank God that he made a good choice.

But the idea of being a stooge to governor Ikpeazu when I am elected into office as the governor of the state come 2023 should not even be thought of.

You know that before this time, I was the chairman of health regulatory body in Nigeria appointed by an APC President. I have chaired international committees involving experts from all over the world. So, please, these things depend on character.

I am not saying that it is not possible to bring in a surrogate, but if you want to bring a surrogate, you get the character of somebody you know that will obey you and begin to allow you to lead him by the nose.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, having being an academic, will not choose a former Vice Chancellor that he will be remote-controlling. Abians should dismiss that from their mind. I am here to defend the integrity of the academics all over the world for which I have represented at the highest echelon. I am here to defend the moral justification of an informed mind all over the world. I am here to also defend the philosophy of the incumbent governor who encouraged my candidacy because he wants a better and he has hoped for somebody who has the character, competence and courage to that which will move Abia forward.

Don’t you think that your plans to create Aba Authority will clash with the Enyimba Economic City?

They are two different things. The Enyimba Economic City is a huge deal that affects the economy of the whole nation because it is based on international investors. The area mapped out for it; about 99 hectares of land is different on its own.

It has nothing to do with Aba main town. The Enyimba Economic City will not consume the whole of what Aba is doing; it will not drive away entrepreneurs and other businesses in Aba. We are going to develop our town and when Enyimba Economic City starts, it will have its own section. It will be a complimentary effort if we develop Aba through the Aba Development Authority.

How are you going to deal with the issue of pension arrears and gratuities?

There is a government in power that has almost six months to complete its tenure. I don’t know what will happen between now and then. I don’t know if they will hand over arrears to me. Until I assume office. But if I inherit salary and pension arrears, I will clear them within six months of my administration because we will prioritize to clear it. But more importantly, we will do some diagnosis; we need to find out what are those challenges, of course you know that our system is bedeviled with corruption and you can’t rule out that as a factor for accumulation of debts.

We will make efforts to clear the genuine indebtedness.

You talked about unifying Abia. Is Abia divided?

Abia is not divided. What I meant is that, this dichotomy of Old Aba and Old Bende which influences the choice of what we do. Some people are seeing me as an Ngwa man. They are not seeing my capacity to develop the state.

There is no physical dividing line, but psychologically we see ourselves as different people; and it is the elites that do this. There is an age long prejudice that we have harboured.

I will unify Abia by making sure that things including appointments are evenly distributed across the state. There will be no preferential treatment, that way everybody will see one another as one.

There is controversy over the new Government House. What is your view?

Already, a Government House is being built and the governor said that he will park in there, even if it is for one day. I will start from whatever that I met on ground.

There is an existing Government House that has been used by the previous administrations in the state. When we come in, we can look at whether we can build the Abia City; Government House, Legislative House and Judiciary, when it is properly planned, we will start early to build a permanent structure.

For the meantime, whatever that I inherit, I will use; we are inheriting both liabilities and assets.

What is your plan on Health?

The other day, I addressed the Nigerian Medical Council. They were talking about tertiary health institutions; Teaching Hospitals… I told them, that is not what I am doing. We have to change the health practices of our people; public health.

That is where participatory governance comes in. By the last record that I checked, they said that they have over 1,337 health centers scattered over the state.

The question is what happens in each of those health centers, especially those that are in the rural areas. What is the professional certification of the people who work in those areas? What basic equipment can be found in those health centers? What baseline services can they afford in those places; can they perform CPR on those who faint in those villages?

I built a health center in my village. Any day that I drive to that place, it is like a ghost town. I know the equipment that I put in that place. The community doesn’t care; they don’t ask questions.

If they post nurses there, which I ensure that they post, nobody comes to find out if they come to work. That is why I said that I will get communities involved in whatever government project that is their place and that is how we promote primary health care.

Primary health care is not about building structure, but educating people on health practices that are good for their health.

In the civilized world, you have public conveniences; it creates employment and also generates revenue that is primary health care. We will emphasize on preventive than curative measures.

What plans do you have for education?

I intend to build a standard model secondary school in each senatorial zone with staff quarters and student hostels.

Private schools are doing well, but I am not running a purely capitalist system; I am running a social capitalist system because I need to protect the other members of the society by mitigating elements of extreme profiteering in the system.

I also know from my research that what is lacking in a public school is effective supervision. You can’t compare the certification of trained teachers in public schools with teachers of private schools. The problem is management which includes close supervision.

There are many families that cannot afford the fees of the private schools; we will find a way of bridging the gap to give our people quality education.

Do you have any threat over some of the candidates of other political parties?

I am not sure that you use the correct word. When somebody is going into a competition with anyone, you will eliminate fear; there is nothing like fear.

All the candidates are eminently qualified by INEC’s guideline, but Abians need the most eminently qualified and I am the most eminent qualified.

If there should be fear, a man that is on top cannot be afraid of the man that is under him.

My mission is to create a greater Abia where we will uplift the life of every Abians and my strategy is participatory governance where I will engage all the stakeholders and by doing so, citizens will become more responsible.

I am not an armchair administrator; I am an active, result-oriented and a performing administrator.