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Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State had a media interaction with journalists in Uyo, the state capital, as part of activities to mark his second year in office where he answered questions on a wide range of issues including his industrialisation programme, housing development and many more. ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, who was part of the session, brings highlights of the briefing. Excerpts:
What can you say about the uneven distribution of industries in the state by your administration? Some of them seem to be concentrated within one local government area?
One thing about industrialisation is that you cannot play politics with it. You cannot spread it everywhere, some of you did Elementary Economics, and you did what is called localisation of industries. You also talked about the syringe factory and the flour mill, you voted me into power, I still remember when I was campaigning and throughout the period, I never mentioned any political party, you can quote me anywhere. Throughout the period of my campaign, I never talked about any individual, even my opponents. I was interested in Akwa Ibom and I tell people one thing, the world would go to somebody whose email address would be understood and read everywhere. By the time you voted me as governor, I have partners all over the world, they are coming to me to say ‘Udom, how we can help you?’ ‘Udom what can we do for you?’ ‘What is your policy direction?’ And some of them like the flour mill, which is one of the biggest flour mills in Europe. If it gives me a condition, the state government is not putting one naira in the flour mill project. The state government is not putting one naira in the syringe factory. What they told me was that ‘Udom we can only come to your place because we know that we would not have issues with the community’ and if they give me that condition, I will be too selfish to tell them ‘no,’ they are coming to me because we have known ourselves in the outside world, they are coming to me because we have met during investors’ conference somewhere. They are coming to me because we have been exchanging emails before I became your governor. They are coming to me because they trust who I am. It has nothing to do with the state government. That is why I told you that money is a coward; it does not go to where it does not feel safe. If I call the people in Onna and tell them please am your son, don’t disgrace me, take for instance, the cooperation I got from Okat in Onna Local Government Area of the state because of the flour mill, we got that same cooperation when I was the Secretary to the State Government and we were about setting up a federal polytechnic in Ukana, Essien Udim Local Government Area, Ukana people gave us land without any condition. They told us ‘come and take our land’ and that is how we started the federal polytechnic. The people of Okat in Onna Local Government never asked me ‘what will you do for us’ for donating land for the flour mill project. They told me ‘we have a land, what do you want’? Come and take it’, that is the spirit and if an investor is saying that they can only come to where I will speak to my community people and they hear me, it costs a whole lot of money to establish those things. It takes a lot to set up a syringe factory. A population of 170 million people, we consume 6 billion syringes every year. As we sit here, we are dispensing syringes everywhere. What is there in a syringe, propylene, nothing more than that and we are importing over 6 billion syringes every year from China. Are we not improving the economy of another country, when we can actually improve our economy and get our people employed? We have to learn about transfer of technology, that is why we had to send 13 engineers abroad, those engineers are not just going there to be trained, they are going to do a proper transfer of technology, so that they can also see that what they have done theoretically in class, with the application of that knowledge we can actually change things. It is not that the industries are not evenly distributed, I don’t have control over it because personally, I did not have money to give him, but he is supporting and if that is what he wants, it is somewhere, it is like the quantum petrochemical which says it wants to be in Ibeno, the fertilizer company by BUA says it wants Ibeno, modular refinery says it wants Ibeno, will I as the governor say they should not go to Ibeno? As the governor of Akwa Ibom State, anywhere the industries are located, they are my own; I must treat them as my own. It does not matter where they are. Let them go to where they feel safe.
What is happening to plans by the state government to provide affordable housing to civil servants in the state?
Housing estate is sweet when it is not 100 percent government funded. If you take a look at the price of cement and other materials, at times, I spoke with the Head of Service and said if we were running on the contributory pension scheme, I could have used the scheme to secure a facility that could have paid for that estate and their pension could have been paying for the houses they are living today but why do we want to run a system where you work until you retire before you start thinking of owing a house, that is the problem we are having. That could have been a major advantage of the contributory pension scheme. Now, we are trying to speak with the Federal Mortgage Bank to see how we can work on the contributions they had made so that it can be subsidised from that end and then we see how we can reduce the cost. However, one thing about government in the period of recession, there is no cash to throw away. You don’t even have enough to run first line activities. On the Unity Estate that we wanted to build along the airport road, it has been plagued by all kinds of court cases, it is the same thing I will answer people when we are talking about Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road, we have made tremendous progress since we came in even when there is no money. We have paid the contractor to the point that most of those houses along the highway require compensation, we have had 32 cases in court and if you have to obey the rule of law, you cannot go and pull down the buildings. With 32 cases in court, what can I do? I must allow the process to go on and until it is settled we cannot do anything there. We want development but we don’t want to shift grounds at all. You want to eat an omelets but you don’t want to break an egg. I think the court has decided on one of those cases. The same with the Unity Estate and the investor got frustrated. These are investors who have brought in their money and they could have done the unity estate that could have been a model in this country, today I am trying to persuade them that they must still come back. Now that the court has decided on one or the two of cases, I am hoping that in the next three weeks, we must start something. Housing development is something government anywhere in the world cannot do alone, that is where we are losing in the south-south region of the country and it is part of the problem we had during the Niger Delta militancy when all the oil service companies in the region moved out of the region and we were losing.
There is also the non-completion of the hangar project at the Ibom International Airport several years after it was started. How does the state government intend to bring it to completion?
We had three major investors who came in. But I want to run something that ten years after, if you ask me questions and I answer you, you will see the transparency in my heart and you will know that I did it in the best interest of Akwa Ibom and not in own interest. Remember a popular song that says there are two mistakes in life. The mistake that you make and people will laugh at you; there are mistakes you make but your heart will be as clear as the rain. That is a good mistake. Let me not make a bad mistake whentomorrow people will laugh at me. You don’t bring in investors on a hangar project when that investor has not signed a contract, else the money you are putting into that project will not generate itself. That is one secret about the business of a hangar project. Everybody claims to be an expert in the hangar project; it does not work like that. If you don’t have a pre-signed contract in a hangar project and then you put your money there, you will be paying interest to the bank and the interest will be accumulating and you won’t even have money to repay the loan. You must pre-sign contract ahead. The people we are looking for are people who already have businesses ahead and we are still searching. We don’t have the expertise in Nigeria to run a hangar project; we still rely on foreign investors. We also have some challenges of cash flow because most of the people that are coming want us to put equity in cash. Not in a recession that you are struggling to meet first line charges that you have extra 10 million dollars to put into the project. These are some of the things that are slowing down the project, but once we have somebody who has a pre-signed contract, we can borrow the money anywhere and pay our equity knowing that we will recover the money.
The ‘Nest of Champions’ only has a football pitch, other sporting facilities are not there, also why is it that the state-owned football team does not have a branded bus?
There is no doubt about that, I accept that hook, line and sinker that the state-owned football club should have a branded bus. The two big buses that we have, the luxury buses, they are not actually branded and The Nest of Champions and the absence indoor sports hall. The contractor has a full design of the stadium, having built it. So, I told them to design for me an indoor multipurpose sports hall where we can do handball, table tennis, name it; a comprehensive indoor sports hall. They have finished the design, but you know the contractors are not going to build it free, it is money for hand, back for ground. So we are on it, we will get done. It is advisable that we allow the contractor that built it to do because they have the design of the stadium, we are on it but I need some money. This time around I need cash not money.
