Expdonaloaded News; Ikpeazu yet to define his Identity –Nwankpa, Abia APC Chair

HON. Donatus Nwankpa is the Abia State Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with some journalists in Aba, he spoke about the 100 days in office of President Muhammadu Bu­hari and that of Dr. Okezie Victor Ikpeazu whom he said was yet to define his identity as governor of Abia State. He equally spoke on other issues...

Excerpt:
President Muhammadu Bu­hari just marked 100 days in office. What is your assessment of his administration?
The first thing that any leader­ship has to do is to restore the confidence of the people. Presi­dent Buhari’s administration has given the people confidence that the leadership has the capacity to respond to their needs.
Secondly, the world is now a global village. So, there is the need to integrate Nigeria into the mainstream of international politics and bring Nigeria at par with comity of developed, advanced and responsible nations of the world. And if you watch the reception accorded to Mr. President in the United States, France and so many other coun­tries, you will see that Nigeria has reclaim its pride of place among the comity of nations and today, call your people anywhere in these countries, they will tell you that the respect, integrity and prestige of Nigerian citizenry has come back to take its rightful position.
The President has shown his commitment to the rule of law. If you watch every tribunal, there has not been any interference on what they are doing as I speak to you now. Look at Imo State for example; a lot of cases involving APC have been going on without any undue interference. Look at Abia, there has not been any tall order from anywhere, maybe as ‘Oga’ directed. So this has shown that this government is disciplined.
Look at the anti-corruption war that we are fighting, people have taken governance as license for squandering money and scav­enging, but the present govern­ment has said no, that this is not what governance is all about. It is about trust, people surrender­ing their sovereignty and per­sonal interest for the government to manage their affairs because they have confidence that you will give them something better. For long, the confidence the people have in governance have seriously being undermined and have been taken for granted. You will see a situation where one man will have twenty cars, take about one trillion naira from the national coffers; money that will change the lives and living conditions of our people and in most cases they will resort to plea bargain to return part of the money that they looted which doesn’t belong to him.
We are proud to say that what other leaders of the country could not do in many years, Mr. President has done it in just 100 days of his administration in office; petrol now sell at N87 and it is in every filling station. That is why we are saying that Mr. President has brought this country in the limelight again.
Look at the military and how they are tackling insurgency. Today, Boko Haram is seeking for dialogue and it is no longer the other way because the Presi­dent has not just fought the war on the pages of newspapers, he has shown operational capacity, military intelligence capacity and the Presidential Will to bring the country to stability.
You can see the way things are going, remember that this is a mess of many years and so, it is not what that is going to be corrected in a day or 100 days. 100days cannot correct the misrule and maladministration of over 20years of this nation. But what we are saying is that the president has shown focus, a vector pro-approach. He is not a scalar, he has direction and we are really comfortable that today, somebody has known that history has beckoned on him to restore back the dignity and to redirect the ship of Nigeria towards progress and that is why we are saying that the 100days in office is not a wasted period.
What is your reaction about the anti-corruption war of the President which is alleged in some quarters to be selective?
The first thing you ask your­self is what is selective about the whole thing? Has the presidency or the president himself writ­ten petition to EFCC or ICPC against anybody? What we are asking is that if you have any fact even against Mr. President or anyone that you are very sure it can be proven beyond every reasonable doubt that a corrupt practice has taken place, bring it. After all, the Senate President has today been taken to court based on the same corruption war. Is he not of APC? Has Mr. President said no to it because he is of the APC and the senate President then he should not be touched? Mr. President has allowed the rule of law to take place.
Let me ask those of them who said that the President is being selective to give us any substan­tial evidence against anybody and because he is of the APC or political accolades of Mr. Presi­dent, the case has been swept under the carpet. I think those things are escapee approach to a well known issue that is on ground to discourage or cause some distractions in the process of bringing Nigeria to the part of sanity.
What will you make out of the Buhari administration’s fight and approach against ter­rorism and insurgency?
Mr. President has not been timid about his fight against in­surgency; he has shown determi­nation. Insurgency is a threat to national unity. It has taken inno­cent lives, it has undermined the economy, integrity and corporate existence of the federal Republic of Nigeria and the President has shown that he is President for all and for that, he has shown re­solve, commitment and one that knows what to do at times like this he has to put his experience in the military into action.
Will you say it has been so good for the state, Abia in this 100days in office?
One of the problems that we have with the constitution is that it doesn’t make provisions for all litigations to be finished before the swearing in of officers in the state and national levels. That will do a lot of good things for us. When a governor is still facing the tribunal, there is seri­ous distraction whether we like it or not. We must say the truth. Secondly, just like Mr. Presi­dent have been open to let the Nigerian public know that some people stole money and that there is no money to work and he is doing some things to make some people to refund what they have stolen so that we can work.
You know from the history of where the governor of Abia State is coming from, he has not been courageous enough to tell us this is what my predecessor left in the office for me. This prede­cessor that was still appointing people even the night to his leav­ing office as the governor of the state, he has left a lot of things that a 100days cannot clean and this is continuity. Continuity of conservatism, Continuity of rigma-rolling and that is why the present governor of Abia, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu has not defined his identity. Whether you like it or not, you can’t say this is the identity of the governor of Abia State. He is still living in the past because most of his cabinet members were already there before he came in as the governor of the state and most of them were those whom he was asked to use. Until Mr. Governor appoints his own commissioners and his men, then we can start seeing something that we can comment about.
Look at the road construction, if you watch some of the roads that he is engaging on, you will see the zeal. But does that zeal transform to intellectualism and approach? The zeal is making him take too many roles and you know when a soldier takes so many fronts at a time, invariably, there is going to be crisis and the zeal he has, might not be com­mensurate with the resources he has at his disposal. So, in that case, what we are praying for is for people to give him a little time, and then we can definitely access him. But for now, the governor has not separated him­self from the past. He has not defined his identity. He has not shown us whether he is going to be different from the past.
A group, Save Abia Initia­tive for Change wrote a peti­tion to EFCC for the probe of the immediate past governor of the state. Do you subscribe to their agitation?
APC is not against any at­tempt to look into any form of embezzlement, fraud, mis­conduct, misappropriation on present and past administrations, we subscribe to that. The most important thing is that people should not be speculative so that the security agencies could be assisted by having facts and having provable evidence and then, it will now be left to the EFCC and if they feel to do it, APC will now come out to speak against it. We must clean our­selves from the past and change our position of feeding on the national treasury.
What do you make out of the outburst between Osita Okechukwu and Rochas Okorocha, Imo State Gover­nor?
Osita Okechukwu is not the spokesman of the APC in the southeast zone. He is one of those that we will continue to look at as people who are not in line with the realities of the moment. The realities of the mo­ment is that anybody from the South East who is in APC that said that Rochas didn’t contrib­ute to the success of APC in the zone and the country as a whole is only being mischievous, irresponsible and economical with the truth. When Okorocha started this battle that we should integrate ourselves with the change, a lot of people saw him as a sell-out. They saw him as not only as a pariah, but also as a deviant and today, they are busy complaining. Rochas after losing out from the Presidential race, started his governorship campaign and was at the same time sponsoring rallies within the southeast. Were Abians, Anambrarians, Enugu and Ebonyi people going to vote for him? We only saw the write up attributed to Osita Okechukwu as one of the mischievous, misguided and manipulated write-ups because we believe that some people somewhere; may be not APC members want to use them to gain chief popularity. Today, everyone want to join APC, everybody wants to identify with the party. It was Okorocha, Nyerere, Osita Izunaso, Chris Ngige, Hon. Donatus Nwakpa, Prince Paul Ikonne, George Moghalu, Emma Enukwu, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, Ikechi Emenike, Acho Obioma, Stanley Ohajuruka were among the people that stood their grounds.