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Era of power of incumbency over in Abia elections –Ichita

Hon Obinna Ichita is the member representing Aba South in the Abia State House of Assembly and deputy governorship candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this interview with IGBEAKU ORJI, he speaks on his party’s chances in the 2023 gubernatorial election and his battle with the state government, among other issues

What informed your choice to contest to contest the forthcoming general election as the deputy governorship candidate of your party?

It was the State Working Committee of my party in conjunction with the governorship candidate that willingly nominated me. In the letter they sent to the national leadership, they stated what informed the choice of Obinna Ichita. Without sounding immodest, one of the reasons was consistency. Second was loyalty to the party. They said my performance as a legislator is sterling and that I have kept faith with the party. So, they believe that as a deputy governor, when we assume office, I will definitely bring something to the table with special reference to governance, administration and management in Abia State. I accepted that responsibility with all sense of humility and loyalty and we are ready to rescue Abia from the clutches of political brigandage.

What is your party’s chance in the election; are you convinced that APGA will do well in 2023 and why do you think so?

I think we will win because the only thing that has deprived the people having their will reflected in the election result has been removed. It is no longer the case where a politician because of his wealth and contacts will gather officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and force them or pay them to declare results that do not reflect popular will. You know this time that votes will count.

So, that as a matter of fact, is the bedrock of our belief. The instrument that gave them the upper hand to cheat us, to oppress us, has been removed. The Electoral Act 2020, as accented to by the President, has now taken the power from the powerful and given it to the people on the streets. So, the decision is for our people to make. No stakeholder will decide who will govern Abia State. No big man will decide; the people of Abia will decide who will govern Abia and they have decided that the only party they will trust is APGA. We are just waiting for the time to come, so that we will demonstrate our anger at the polling booths.

Are you confident that the Independent National Electoral Commision (INEC) will not compromise this time?

There is no room for compromise. We saw what happened in Osun, when people talk about federal might and the power of incumbency, it never played any role. In Abia also, it won’t play any role. What will play the major role is the feeling of the people. If you go out there, you will see that the people are despondent. You see lots of feeling of indignation, it’s everywhere.

The people who will vote are the pensioners who have not been paid; the medical staff who have not been paid; the teachers who have not been paid; the tricycle and Keke operators who are extorted daily. The people who will vote also are the students whose university or polytechnic have lost accreditation and whose university can no longer produce medical doctors in this state.

People who will vote are people who cannot access medical care; people who have had their environment littered with mortuaries. Nobody is happy in Abia State and you think our people are stupid? No, we are not stupid. Abia is a State made up of people of exceptional level of intelligence, but unfortunately bad leadership ensured that we now have a docile followership and the concomitant effect is bad governance. But the hope we have is that now it’s no longer business as usual.

Firstly, we have a candidate that towers above every other candidate in Abia State. Professor Gregory Ibe, the highest investor in the state, the highest individual employer of labour in Abia State, the highest accomplished man, a strong academic, well exposed, connected, and he possesses the requisite intellectual sophistication for governance. I don’t think there is any reason for anyone to be in doubt. APGA is the party to beat; APGA will form the next government in Abia State.

What is it that the present administration is doing that you will do differently if you form government in 2023?

What we will do differently is governance. Let us do a sector by sector analysis. Firstly, take the health sector: it is inconceivable for me, and I believe for every rational human being, that the most critical sector in the State is dead. In the whole of Abia State we don’t have one functional MRI machine. We are going to revamp the health sector. As a private citizen, upon the collapse of the health sector, Prof. Gregory Ibe, our governorship candidate, took it upon himself to provide the people with free medical care. That’s a demonstration of empathy.

We have a document – Roadmap to a new Abia, where we have outlined things we will do sector by sector, local government by local government. This is our own part of the social contract. We sign ours and we expect that our people will sign theirs by supporting and voting APGA because our people know that our candidate have demonstrated proven ability to manage complex organisations. If somebody can effectively manage a university, I don’t think the person does not possess the requisite intellectual sophistication that will prepare him for governance. He is willing, he is ready, he has the plans, the road map and the blueprint. We are going to effect a paradigm shift in Abia State.

Can you share your experience in the House of Assembly as a lawmaker?

Well, my experience has been interesting, exciting and to a very large extent, depressing. It is interesting because what has happened over time is that our people do not seem to understand that the legislative arm is the arm that represents the interest of the people and holds the executive arm accountable. It’s been challenging because as you might know, we were three elected under the platform of APGA into the Abia Assembly in 2019. As fate would have it, the other two defected to other political parties, abandoning the people and the party that gave them the mandate.

I am the only one who has remained consistent in what we believe. That is a very big challenge of its own. You can imagine a House of 24 members and you are the only person from your own political party. In that House, we have three members from the APC and two members presently from other political parties different from APGA and you have the rest being members of the PDP.

So. what it means is that I am the minority of the minority in the House of Assembly. That has been very challenging. Then I said it has been depressing It’s depressing to see the executive arm of government not having any respect for the resolutions of the legislative arm. The executive arm of government behaves as if it is peopled by rockstars. It is very depressing. However, though the situation is depressing, we are not depressed and that’s the most important thing. We are very motivated, prepared as ever, to ensure that we make our people understand that the power of the people is greater than the people in power.

At a point, you raised the alarm that the state government took a loan from the World Bank for specific projects in your constituency, which you alleged were not executed. Also, the state government, at a time, went to court, asking that you prove the allegations. How did the matter end?

The matter has not ended. As we speak, there are two cases instituted by agents and officials of the state government on behalf of the state government against me. It is instructive to know that the intention is not for me to provide evidence about what I am saying. Rather, they intended to have the court to bar a member of the legislative arm from exercising his constitutional duty of oversight.

That was the very first time it happened in modern democracy that members of the executive arm ran to the judicial arm to stop a member of the legislature from exercising the constitutional duty of oversight. Of course, the court threw away that request and held that as far as what we are saying is the truth, nobody can gag us because that is unconstitutional. We are willing and ready to defend ourselves. We have always told the people that the government, of course, obtained this loan from the World Bank, $56.4 million for flood mitigation project in Aba. The Ifeobara pond has been abandoned. The underground tunnel has been abandoned.

The roads that should have been constructed as a result of this flood mitigation project, remember, or it is necessary for me to say, that there should have been a tunnel underground from Ifeobara down to Aba river, about 5.8km. What happened was that the government threw away all these things. Even the roads that should have been constructed as a consequence of this flood mitigation intervention, roads like Ohanku, Uratta, Port Harcourt, Obohia, Ngwa, all these should have been constructed.

That was how road construction became part of the flood mitigation intervention. I have always argued that you can’t destroy peoples means of livelihood, destroy their business premises, destroy their residential buildings in the name of road construction and then abandon the project. It’s not fair. These are means of livelihood of people.

I mean, we should be fair enough to treat people the way we would want to be treated. That was the reason they went to court, trying to stop me from ventilating the concerns of my constituency but the court threw away that application and now we are at a different stage and we are very willing and ready to continue to speak for our people, so that our people, at least for once, would benefit from this intervention that came from the World Bank. That is the height of human intervention. Besides the World Bank, who else can give us money? We didn’t get this money from any commercial bank in Nigeria, not from any regional bank, but the World Bank. It is shameful that many years after we received this loan, we have not seen a visible demonstration of the willingness of the state government to ensure that the project is completed.

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