The 2015 general election holds next February, and many have expressed interest various positions, including the one you occupy, but you have been quiet. Are you re-contesting, or grooming a successor?
Well, your question simply put is whether I am thinking of going back to the Senate. If so, when I am declaring and the answer will be not very straightforward. I will disappoint you by not giving you a categorical answer or declaration. If you had watched the 2011 elections, I did not declare to run for the Senate until about five weeks to that election. I did that for two reasons. The first reason was that my party at that time, the ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria)… we waited to see who the gladiators would be. Those who would come out from the other political parties and once it was clear to me that APGA (All Progressive Grand Alliance) had brought out the late Professor Dora Akunyili, I knew that the battle would be very strong. The incumbent at the time, Senator Annie Okonkwo declared that he wanted to go back. So, it was a tough choice for us in our party because we knew that if we brought anybody except myself, nobody would have competed favourably with these guys. And therefore I had to throw my hat into the ring at that time I did. This time again, I am the incumbent Senator for Anambra Central Senatorial zone, and as far as I am concerned and as far as my party is concerned, I have discharged the functions of that office very creditably. As for my constituents, they have never had it so good because for the first time, they had seen a Senator go direct and through the constituency project siting… execution, the way it should be and even in the quantum of projects brought. They have never seen it this way too.
Could you tell us some of these projects?
For example, as we talk to you now, we have distributed about 168 distribution transformers in Anambra Central senatorial district. There is no town that did not get a transformer. Some towns got five, some four, some three, depending on their needs. So, this is what we have done in the power sector. You go also into the area of education. We have cited classroom blocks in so many communities here. The transformers we brought, we also did their installation because it is not a question of giving you transformer to go and install. Installation of distribution transformers is sometimes more than the cost of transformer purchase. So, for the first time, we brought transformers and we installed them. Work is ongoing in most of them, but about 80 percent of the transformers have been installed and hooked up to the national grid. And again, the first time, we also went into the area of power transformers. At Agu Awka here, we have also put in a power transformer and then demarcated and separated parts of Awka from the Nibo power station (with) 132 60/2 KVA power station at Nibo. We removed parts of Nibo and then put them on into this new transformer we have at Agu Awka.
And Awka residents will tell you that the power supply and power situation here has greatly improved. We were able to do that because of our interest in our constituents getting whatever is their right and more so, because I am the Deputy Chairman of Senate Committee on power. I know the ongoings in this area. Educationally, we have also sited some classroom blocks, accompanied with VIP toilets in almost all the local governments under my senatorial district. We have in Awka South. We have the Federal Government College Nise. We sited classroom block, a VIP toilet and a borehole two years ago. In Awka South, Awka proper, at the practicing school, we have built another one. In Dunukofia, we put a school block in Umunnachi Community Secondary
School. We have also sited one classroom block in Idemili South in Alor my hometown. In Anaocha, we have sited in Union Primary School Agulu, called St Mark’s Agulu II. And at Ichida, we have another school there. We have also sited another school at Ogidi and Nkpor in Idemili North. And we have also sited another one at Umudioka. You can go round and see what we have done.
What other ways have you impacted on your constituents?
On a personal ground, I have also initiated some scholarship programme for the people in my senatorial district. About 6000 people are benefitting aggregately from the secondary school and tertiary education programme that we have. People in the polytechnics, people in the Colleges of Education, people in the Colleges of Education (Technical), then the universities, they have all been captured in the programme. And we are paying for them from our own resources. We do that both as a philanthropic donation and it is part of ameliorating the pressure on parents in my senatorial district as per paying their children’s school fees.
Coming to health facilities, we have cited a health facility in Abatete, in Idemmili North. We have sited another two at Alor too. And we have also sited another one at Awka North Local Government Area. We are to do more and in water supply, we have done a lot of boreholes. We have solar powered boreholes in Umudioka. It is running in their village square. Villagers go there and nobody is asked to contribute anything for diesel. We have one at Abacha, near the church compound. We have another borehole at Nnokwa. We have one borehole at Akwaeze. Akwaeze is in Anaocha, Nnokwa is in Idemmili South. We have another borehole sited at Amansea there. The solar component is not yet there, but I am told they will bring it this period so that the villagers don’t contribute money for diesel. We have another borehole sited an Enekwesum in Idemmili North. We have another one sited at Odume. They are all part of Obosi urban. We have another one at Ogidi. And we have another one sited at Nnobi. So, we can see that it is galaxy of projects. People are saying, ‘Why are we commissioning them?’ We are not commissioning them because we don’t need to make too much noise about them. They are for services to humanity. But I think that before I leave office, we will go round with some senators, so that they can assist us in cutting the tapes so as to do official declaration on these achievements.
So (to answer your question more specifically), we have done this as projects and we have not been sleeping in the chambers of the National Assembly. We have about seven bills to my name, having passed first and second reading.
We will like to know about these bills you are talking about…
We have a resounding motion, co-sponsored by 180 Senators for Late Chinua Achebe. He was the only man who had no legislative standing that got senate recognition in death and was giving a full day by the Senate of Federal Republic of Nigeria to pay tribute to his memory, to ask the Federal Government to give him national burial. I moved that motion because Chinua Achebe was my constituent. Equally, I co-sponsored the motion for the Ikemba Nnewi to be giving a national burial and for a national monument to be named after him. I wasn’t sleeping in the chambers. If I was sleeping, those motions would not have been moved. I have at least seven other bills-Bill to amend the firearms armed robbery Act, so that it is not a sentence all the time for armed robbers and for some mitigating lower sentences to be given depending on the grievousness of the offence or the gravity of the offence. I also have a Power Sector Reform Bill (which later became the)- Power Sector Reform Act of 2005.
We are asking that we give incentives to the (power) generation companies (unbundled from the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria- PHCN), and sold, so that foreign investors or those who want to invest do not panic too much because of the recovery period of banks (loans obtained to complete purchase of those assets). The recovery period (tenor of the loans) now is 15 years. The banks want them longer. So, I have initiated an amendment for 25 years (in the) first instance, to be inserted as an amendment clause. I have also put in motion for amendment to the Teacher Education Act.
After the tribunal, offending teachers are not given the right to appeal to the next Court of instance, which actually should be a High Court before the Court of Appeal. We want that to take the normal route of law and ascendancy of court.
We have also another bill that will make it compulsory for hospitals to treat people that have accident, especially when they have bullet injuries. You know that as of now there is an Act that does not empower you to be treated unless you tender a police report. This has led to a lot of deaths. Sometimes, innocent people are shot by armed robbers. They have bullet wounds. They get to hospital. They are not treated. They are deemed to be armed robbers themselves because there is nobody to clear them. So, we say in this Act, you must treat them first. As you are treating, you are inviting the law enforcement agencies to come and look into the screening and the patient in question.
I also participated in the National Health Bill which emanated from my committee on Health. We have only two medical doctors in the committee on Health- the Chairman, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa and myself and other patriotic Nigerians. And we fired that heath bill. It wasn’t an executive bill but because of the medical colouration of the bill, most of the work and the trust of the work was thrust on me and Dr Ifeanyi Okowa. And we did a good work and submitted it to the Senate through our Committee and I am happy that the bill is moving fast. It has passed first reading, second reading and all that and we have even held committee with the House of Representatives on that bill. Immediately, the senate goes into full swing, the report of the conference committee will be tabled for us to pass. That bill now awaits presidential assent for it to become law.
How will Nigerians benefit from this health bill?
That bill is a bill that the framework gives a health framework for the country. We don’t have a framework. So, it brought together all the ancillary health laws that we have and put them together into one basket. But more importantly, the beauty of the bill is that it will take care of the ‘have nots’. In anything I am doing, the ‘have nots’ are the people I think about. I don’t think about the bourgeois, I don’t think about the parasitic elite who abound in the whole of Nigeria. We have devoted two and half percent of the consolidated revenue of the nation for maintenance of the primary health care system and maintenance of health insurance scheme, which will at the end of the day be very valuable for those who don’t have and those whose stipends, allowances or whatever they take home have been famished or dehydrated by the bourgeois who have been stealing from our national purse. This is our own way of getting out something from our national purse.
This is our own way of getting out something from the national purse and dedicating it to the poor masses of the country. So, these are things I have done in my three years stay in the Senate. I feel satisfied. I tried my best within the encumbrancing situation of being an opposition senator and excruciating hostile political climate in Nigeria, especially against the legislators and legislature. Some of the hostilities are misplaced because some of us have the good intentions to alleviate and ameliorate the problems facing this country. And so, if I am to judge by what I achieved, I think my constituents will want me to go back. But for me as a person, I am still now doing what I can call, strategic consultations with the various power points, power groups and opinion moulders… with my constituents, to see if I have their blessing, but if they think there is another office or assignment that I can be asked to do, I will very willingly do it. I am not desperate to cling on to a political office. A political office is for public service. Once it is not for public service, count me out. So, this is what I can say on this nation.