Why I am angry – Akpabio

The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Barrister Godswill Akpabio, in an interview with newsmen, said the all round development of the state remains his priority, even as his tenure is set to end slightly over two from now. Akpabio said rather than begin the politics of succession and what the future holds for him, he would concentrate on consolidating on his achievements in office. Excerpts:

On the onshore, offshore
When we had the onshore and offshore problem in 2000, for about nine months, then President Olusegun Obasanjo offered a remedial measure for a South-South political solution when he was giving additional N600 million to Akwa Ibom State. That lasted for about seven to about nine months and the situation was corrected and Akwa Ibom went back into receiving revenue from Derivation. And also in 2000, in the month of at least September, and the records are available at the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission and Ministry of Finance offices, when my state also collected N3.7 billion. At that time, the state that collected the highest derivation was Delta. I think Delta collected N5 billion or more. Rivers came second. Then Bayelsa came third and Akwa Ibom came fourth. Later on, Rivers used to come first, Delta second, Akwa Ibom third and Beyelsa fourth. But later, on Akwa Ibom came first but changes according to oil production and also according to militancy. Yes, when the activities of militants are reduced and Shell can tap a lot of oil, then the production in Niger Delta will pick. And so what they have done now is that they are now calculating derivation on monthly basis because sometimes Mobil can have oil spill and then you cannot but suspend production. And so for that month, our own resources will have to dwindle and then you may go down because you have a major spill and that of course will eventually affect the final derivation and in that wise, for that month we might come to number four or number three.
But generally speaking, we have at least four major states that collect their derivation levies. We have Delta State, we have River State, we have Bayelsa State, we have Akwa Ibom. Then again, Edo and Ondo also joined. But what we have is not the money being so much that translates to development. It is the vision, it is the dedication, it is the sincerity, it is the commitment, it is the totality of your being. Is it your intention before coming to government that you really want to move the government forward? I think that is where the problem lies and if it is your intention to do so, then you will really do so.

Investing in the people
I was at a State Executive meeting in 2011 when an executive governor attended our meeting and he was telling us about Borno State economy and he announced to us that his governor left behind N64 billion. But if you look at Borno and how much it gets in a month, for Borno to have saved up to N64 billion and the new governor met N64 billion, the press should have asked questions: What did you leave behind? He left behind Boko Haram and N64 billion in the bank. That is why sometimes they say if you don’t give to God, you give to devil. Am I right? So, if you don’t give the money for the benefit of your people, then what will happen is that you have to use the money to cure the problems that you caused because the reaction to the neglect of the poor, to the neglect of pauperized and the weak, to the neglect of human capacity building would come in an attempt to say you are not corrupt. And then you keep billions in the bank in order to attract interest. Am I right or wrong? And your business is booming while the society is dying and you are now saying if the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission comes you can account for the money. Is that governance? That is a very clear example of the fact that you don’t know how to manage and then the money does not speak. The money does not benefit the people, the money does not impact on the life of the people and the money is just kept in the bank, it does not have value.

Comparing Akpabo with predecessor
Now, to compare myself with the past regime…. One thing is certain: before I came into government, cement was about N350. You know in government today, cement is above N2,000. So, if the past administration collected about N5 billion ro N6 billion a month and cement was selling at N350 as at that time and I am collecting N10 billion or N12 billion, almost double, and cement is above N2,000, is there any gain? You understand? You could just have performed if you have the vision and sincerity. If you have the passion and commitment, you could also have also impacted on the lives of your people if you do not have ulterior motive and this has been the problem. So I am building the state from the scratch as if Akwa Ibom was born today. It wasn’t born today.

Why I am angry
I started with a lot of anger. You can help me. I served as commissioner for five years and I knew that where I met the state is not where it ought to have been. I used my money to repair this Calabar-Usi Road when I was commissioner when former President Olusegun Obansajo was to pay a visit to the state. I went and brought a heap of sand to try to fill potholes along the road. So I went to the incumbent governor at that time and I said sir, let’s do something about the road. He said get out, is it my father’s road? Let him (Obasanjo) come and see how he has been neglecting Akwa Ibom. I said sir, but the visitors that are coming, they would think this government is not performing. He asked: Is it my business to fix federal roads? Will you get out of this place? So, I was a man who over advised. At times, you have to be very careful how you advise those in government. The reason my former governor picked quarrels with me is because I over advised. If you over advised government, you become an opposition even with your best intention.
Let me also tell you: an international award was given to me in Kenya and a television correspondent came to interview me and asked: What was your motivating factor for all you have achieved in your state, which won you the award? I was stunned because that was not the question I expected he would ask. I expected he would ask how is Akwa Ibom and the rest. So I looked at her and answered that question: I said anger. What motivated me was anger.
Do you know that after my speech, they set up a panel of discussants on Kenya Television to discuss the anger of the Akwa Ibom Governor? And the conclusion was let Kenya produce many angry politicians who can on the spur of anger bring monumental and phenomenal development to the country. If you are not angry with the state of insecurity and the state of underdevelopment, the state of poverty in the society, if you are not angry with the lack development and infrastructure and if you are not angry that it is the duty of state to ensure that employment opportunity should be created for thousands of people, then you have no business in governance. Somebody must be angry. It is that determination and anger that spur you to greater height.
But like I said there and then, I say almost five and a half years later, the anger is waning and when I listen to you people, the anger starts subsiding. In fact, when I listen to the way people identify with what we do here and the way you, on daily basis, mould the thinking of the society, my anger keeps going down because you are not partisan. You are not politicians. You always speak from the heart. And among you here, we have opposition elements. Many of you are opposition and many of you are also very critical.

Assessment of Akpabio’s regime
Obasanjo came here and described the three segment of Akwa Ibom society. Those who support Godswill Akpabio, those who are neither here nor there and those who are in total opposition to Godswill Akpabio. That those who are in support of Godswill Akpabio said ah, the governor is performing excellently well. Those who are neither here nor there say the man is trying and those who are in opposition say yes, he has done well but he has money (laughs). My prayer is that anybody that is coming to Akwa Ibom should have money and should also do well. So, you see the fact is that what Akwa Ibom is receiving is 0.00001 per cent of what comes from the Federation Account monthly. On a monthly basis, what I use is 0.00001 per cent of the Federation Account. All states in the federation collect 24 per cent of federal revenue. What the states draw collectively is 24 per cent, the local governments collect 15 per cent, the Federal Government takes 52 per cent. The collectible fund takes about three per cent. Then nine per cent goes to the Federal Capital Territory and another one goes to a fund they call intervention. Let me go further: If the Federal Government has agreed to increase derivation and Akwa Ibom is able to get one per cent, you know between me and you, I would have transformed Akwa Ibom to a small Dubai for you. You wouldn’t needed to go abroad again.

What about the anger now?
The anger should be going down. You see, I am not critising, I am only telling you the situation of things as a regards how much we are getting and the transformation we have put in place in Akwa Ibom. Now you know about the arguments about onshore and offshore. You used to know that there is a dichotomy on revenue from oil. The onshore and offshore issue is still there. It has not been totally removed. The compromise position was that states are to be paid for oil wells located within 200 meters isoberg. That they came to agree on 200 nautical miles that was said in an interview in order to incense the North. Two hundred nautical miles on international waters, no African country has the capability to produce oil there.
But what the man said in his interview is that they are paying derivation for 200 nautical miles that is deep on international waters. There is element of falsehood in order to cause violence. He knows the truth. He said it so that he can get support. I know Nigerians. If the totality of dichotomy is removed, Lagos will produce the highest quantity of oil. Yes because, Bonga Oil field is located within the Lagos area. It is a deep sea oil. It produces 800,000 barrels of oil a day. If the issue of dichotomy is removed today and they say there is no longer dichotomy, the state that might be the highest oil producing state in Nigeria is Lagos.
Go and look at the amount that they pay derivation on. But it is not commensurate to the oil sourced because the rest of oil wells are beyond 200 metres isoberg. The governors are saying that exploration is affecting aquatic life, it impacts on the sea, on the livelihood of the people on the shore because the life can never be the same. In the past, you could take white sand by the shore line and use it to brush your teeth but now the sand is black. You know with the ecosystem and the continuous burrowing, and you know this oil will not last forever. So you can assist me and tell Nigerians that if we continue doing that for another 25 years, because the oil will finish in 30 years, the whole of this Niger Delta will finish while Nigeria will continue in Abuja. So why don’t you allow the people to have a reasonable share while they wait for the day when there would be no more oil to tap? You can’t to take that opportunity away.

Implications on national security
And what are the implications to national security? It was the same derivation issue and same onshore-offshore issue that gave birth to militancy in the Niger Delta and Nigeria had nothing to sell for months. Under former President Yar’Adua, there was a month we had nothing to sell. So why do you as a country continuously take decisions that take us backwards? That is the point I am making. Even there is something that has to do with our eailway. There was a time in this country when I was going to the Nigerian Military School in 1970. I took a train from Aba to Zaria. Thirty-two years later, the railway has disappeared from Nigeria. Where others are now going to the moon to see how the surface of the moon looks like, Nigeria can longer service their railway. Is that the kind of legacy we want to leave for our children? I think we should focus on doing things that will unite this country rather than doing things that will divide us. I am very worried that we should be promoting religious dichotomy today when Nigeria is supposed to be a secular state. I take decisions based on the Nigerian constitution. My Chief Security Officer is a muslim and he is from Kano and you will not believe that for the past six years, my ADC is from Azare in Bauchi State. He is muslim. He had worked with me for over six years. My first orderly for the first four years came from Benue State. This present one for the last two years is from Kaduna State. So I recognise Nigerians in people. So even in my state, my Commissioner of Finance is not from my tribe. For six year now, my Security Adviser is not from my town. It is incumbent on leaders to live by example. If Nigerians begin to focus on religion, on things that divide us, it means people like my CSO, my ADC and the rest will be from my tribe. Leadership must be seen to be promoting the unity of Nigeria. We must live by example. I am a beneficiary of good governance and that was why in 2011 anywhere I went for campaign, I kept telling my people that if I was not contesting election, I would have voted for Governor Godswill Akpabio (laughs).

On road projects
Since 2007, not even a kilometre of road that I have done that you can see a single pothole. It wasn’t like that. We are still a part of Niger Delta. I have done drainages. I have done underground, major underground drainages system. Inf act, the third one is the one on my former governor’s way. We have done a lot of drainages and the rest of them to take care of flooding and within two minutes after major rainfall, you can hardly find water on the earth surface in Akwa Ibom. Those are the kind of drainages we have done. The President even advised that we could do a documentary so that it could be put in the National Library for future reference. This is the kind of legacy we are living behind. I prefer to dispense rather than acquire. Let me dispense goodwill. Let me dispense dividends. Let me dispense good governance.

On a collapsed bridge
There was a bridge that collapsed in the state. Do you know that those who tried to pass that bridge, some of them died? There was a man that was trying to pass that bridge with an okada and his son. They drowned. The man lost the son. Also a prominent man was to be buried around that area but guests could not go through the bridge and the entertainment had be moved to Port Harcourt. Look gentlemen, you can’t even understand what I am talking about. That my village, the economic activities there died. There was no single filing station. There was nothing for 29 years. Any time I am going home, I had to pack my car at Ikot Ekpene and even the okada man that would carry me must be somebody who knows me because he would refuse no matter how much you offer. You have to understand what I am talking about. I don’t want to get angry. When I tell you I was angry, you need to understand.

Verdict on the military
As media men, you need to know that there are more projects in Nigeria between 1999 and today than between 1960 and 1998. So no matter how you hate democracy, don’t ever forget to highlight that side. The military underdeveloped this country. There are many more projects in the states. I was in Anambra. I was in Awka. You will be surprised that they have built some good roads in the area. Yes. For one and half hour, I was on good road on Enugu-Awka Road. I was very happy. This came about through democracy. There is no good reason to post a military governor from Sokoto to come to Akwa Ibom and after doing the road that comes to Government House and he would start thinking of doing roads in another area or community. Is that his community? He is on military positing and this was the situation we had for 35 years in the country. Nobody can love your people more than you do.

Measures to safeguard or maintain the infrastructure
As part of efforts at ensuring sustainability, I signed a bill into law which is on establishment of Infrastructure Maintenance Agency last week and I want them to employ 450 youths at 150 per senatorial district and open three offices in the three senatorial districts. They will take over aspects of roads maintenance, filling potholes and maintaining the street lights and the rest of them. Well, the issue of road maintenance does not lie with the workers. It lies with the leadership. If you have somebody who has the same vision with you and he becomes the governor, he will do that. If you don’t have somebody who shares the same vision with you and he becomes the governor and notwithstanding the maintenance agency you have set up, everything will go backward. My prayer is that God will bring a successor that will think like me, that will be part and parcel of the policies we are doing, somebody who will go with the same passion to see to the full implementation of the policies of government.

After developing infrastructure in the state, are you also thinking of developing human capital?
There is always something you don’t have to do. Something you leave for the next government because if Jesus Christ had done everything, what will the reverend fathers do? I would leave that in my handover note that the next government should focus a lot on that. But I am sure that for every single contract we give out, employments are being given. Foreign contractors doing the project are not working with for foreigners, except supervisors, they are working with Akwa Ibom people. For every single job that we give out, hundreds and thousands of Akwa Ibom people are being employed at any point in time and at the same time conversely we are also trying to bring in industries because that is the focus now. I am happy to announce to you that in partnership with a company called Specta, we are sending the first batch of people to be trained out already. In 2008, when I realized that the aluminium company may collapse because they didn’t have enough gas, I had to sign an agreement with an energy company that I will buy gas from them at $2 per cubic feet and then distribute it straight to independent power plants and aluminium smelter company. So they are in with an investment of over $350 million. We have just finished plans to process gas now in those stations. We are also trying to do an underground gas pipeline through to NIPP in Calabar to supply gas through that project. So in February this year, we are going to get the President to come and commission that gas processing plant. We have done the first phase of the plant. They are processing the gas now. We have also sent a lot of our children abroad for training. When I came on board, in the whole state, we were having one consultant and that was already in the ministry as a director. I had to employ additional 30 medical consultants to come and be attending to children and others in the hospital. Today, I have sent a lot of doctors abroad to go and study in different places so that they can come back and offer services to the people. Then I also realise the need to have additional institutions because of the increase in enrolment in the state. It is the policy of the state that any child who is a Nigerian is entitled to free education up to senior secondary level. So there is no discrimination at all. Any school that you see that has not been refurbished, those schools you see that were not refurbished, those schools were handed over to the missions and at those missions instead want money for the refurbishment and I said I am not giving them money. So any missionary school, whether primary or secondary school, that allows us to step in to intervene, I would step in and that also include hospitals. Now these hospitals are finding it difficult to have indigenous staff and also consultants as they used to do when they were sending reverend fathers and nurses from outside Nigeria to come and help in offering services.

Dream to connect every village in the state to the national grid
Then we also have what we call Inter-ministerial Direct Labour job. Over N20 billion in a year is spread out into N5 million and N10 million and given to each individual for empowerment across the state. They are the ones doing the electrification jobs you have seen. If you look at that place along the road you would a lot of transformers. We are still giving them to communities because I believe that before I leave office all the over 3,700 villages in Akwa Ibom must be connected to national grid. So all the electricity projects we are doing know will be taken over by the Federal Government once they are connected to the National Grid. It is no longer your property. A government must be committed to providing basic amenities for its people: water, electricity, good education, good health care, among others. It doesn’t matter who owns it, whether it is owned by the Federal Government or the state government, what matters is that the state have light. There is, therefore, no way any government will avoid the aspect of capacity building. The future of the country lies in education and I am hoping that if my children cannot get employment on the basis of quota, they should get employment on the basis of their skills.