2015: S’East needs other zones to produce president – Mbadinuju

Former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju,spoke in an interview with CHINELO OBOGO on the ongoing controversy between Kogi and Anambra States over oil wells, the call for cease fireby the Boko Haram sect, 2015 presidential elections and other issues. Excerpts: Anambra owns the oil wells in thestate It is God who owns the land and we are just enjoying the fruits thatcome from it. When I was governor, we began the oil exploration, I set up a committee and we travelled abroad in a bid to develop a petroleum industry for the state. That project was mybaby but maybe because of the confusion that trailed my leaving office, the governors that came on board did not follow it up as Idid. It is a good thing that President Goodluck Jonathan came and saw for himself that a lot has already been done and hedeclared us an oil producing state. We have a lot of oil before then but it was not explored and there is no way you can stop oil from flowing to where it wants to.Because we were not exploring it then, it flowed into rivers in stateslike Delta, Rivers and others. Now that we want to explore it, alot of people are now raising eye brows. I believe that every state has oil beneath the land, it is a matter of making serious efforts to dig and discover it. I advise Kogi and Enugu States to look deep and they will discover oil in their own land. They should take their eyes away from that of Anambra State otherwise it will continue to cause trouble. I knowthat there are boundary demarcations but you cannot tell oil not to flow from one place to another. Let every state exploit itsown oil so that this problem will cease. We have had enough problems in the country. Given the demarcations, the land wherethe contentious oil is located belongs to Anambra State. Enuguand Kogi never complained whenthe demarcations were made, it isnow that we have been declared oil and gas producing state that they started making issues out of it. Anambra North and the 2014 governorship I have learn in life not to prevent anyone from getting what God wants him to. If God has ordainedthat you will get something and someone wants to prevent it, the person will not go far. Whether you are from Anambra North, Central or South, we are all brothers. Since Anambra was founded, there has been no question about zoning. What has happened is that if anybody is capable of financing his election and all that it entails to emerge as governor, the person will comeout and declare his interest irrespective of the senatorial district that the person comes from. You cannot fold your arms and expect that power will be handed over to you on a platter of gold. That is not politics. If youare begging people to give you power, no one will do that for you because power is either taken by force or by strategy. When there is an interest, everybody pursues it whether for his himself, his people or his zone. My advice to Anambra North is that they should come together and raise one or two persons andprepare them to face other candidates from the other zones so that at the end of the day theycan be proud that they did that for themselves and not that they were given. If you wait for everyone to come together and agree that power will be handed over to you, you might wait forever. Before I became governor, we went round to all the wards campaigning. We did not wait for anyone to come and hand power over to us and at theend of the day, it was very clear that I won the election. You do not sit in your house and beg for power to be given to you, you goout and take it. Is it possible for the South East toproduce president in 2015? Things are to be done in wisdom and not in blindness. The truth is that we seem not to be prepared.For instance, the South East has only five states while other zones have six and seven. So if we say we want to produce the president, have we talked with other zones in the country that have more states than we do? It is good we have talks across the zones before we act if not we willbe fighting a lost cause. Secondly,if an elected public officer has completed his first term, the constitution allows him to go for a second term. In America, Romney had all it took to emergeas President, but he was fighting someone who had considerably done well in his first term and that was why the election turned out that way. In our own case, President Jonathan has not done badly, so if he wants to go for a second term as the constitution permits and not according to whims and caprices of an individual, no one has the right toprevent him from doing so. It is unjust to prevent a man from doing what the constitution permits him to do. The ongoing constitution review I do not think that the constitution is our problem. Our problem is that we have not imbibed the spirit of running a democracy. We all saw how America conducted its elections. They had set down rules for the elections, and if you cannot follow the rules, you will fail the elections. There is the rule of law,due process, fairness and equity where you treat your brothers as you will treat yourself. We see this working in other democracies. If there are clauses in the constitution that are impeding our democracy, it is good that the national assembly amends it, but going for a complete constitution amendment is not necessary. As long as we do not have the spirit of brotherliness, a sovereign national conference will not be ofany use. There is a lot of bitterness in this country especially when it comes to the issue of politics and governance. There are people who wait until all the work is done during an election and then they rig to perpetuate themselves in power. Was there any record of rigging in the American election? All the international media were monitoring the elections and they predicted who would win based on the rules. What they said would happen eventually happened. At a time, everyone wrote off Obama and felt that Romney had won, but they kept working at their campaigns and the forecast that the international media gave came to pass. Obama did not need to go to Okija shrine. The whole process was transparent. The loser congratulated the winner and you do not see so much bitterness and rancor like you see in this country. Even after the end of the constitution amendment, we will still be faced with ethnic differences where some will say I am Igbo, the next person says I am Yoruba etc. No one says I am Nigerian. Despite the fact that America has the highest number of multilingual groups, what you hear them say is, I am American. But it is not so in this country. Boko Haram and the quest for dialogue When the militants were killing, kidnapping and blowing up oil installations, the government of the day handled the situation through dialogue and that was how amnesty came to be and thecountry enjoyed some respite. Since the government dialogued with the militants, they should also dialogue with Boko Haram. Itis a matter of approach and I think the government is right in the position that they have taken.If members of the sect identify themselves and they agree to come out and dialogue with the government, I do not see anything wrong with that. They are Nigerians and if some are notfrom this country, then it is left tous to do our best and see that foreigners do not infiltrate the country to cause confusion. The government’s dialogue will not besetting a bad precedence for future uprisings. We cannot give up. We will talk with them. Let us handle the problems as they come.