Q: You once accused former President Obasanjo of ruining your businesses.
Why then do you still get involved in politics?
A :
Every living Nigerian is a political animal. It is our duty to speak up when things are going wrong. If people like us were not in politics, maybe the third term agenda would have been a success, but we were there to oppose it. It is not every time that we win, neither is it every time that we are in our comfort zone. Sometimes, you need to be out of your comfort zone for things to get done. I’m not interested in party politics, but I cannot stop politics. Nigerians are usually economical with the truth and they need people to be vocal about speaking the truth.
How can I leave a platform on where truth should be said? I must have a stake, a say and an interest in politics even when I’m not running for office. Now that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has won, I must ask them questions based on their campaign promises. In the next four years, I would be working on a project and it would champion the cause for Nigeria to run a presidential system of one tenure only, which would be made up of six years and we are going to start with the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari. I have championed this for a very long time. The amount of money usually spent during elections is not good for the economy.
The economy nearly collapsed because people were running for elections. My non-governmental organisation, the Orji Kalu Foundation would liaise with people from different parts of the country and we would push for the country to adopt a system where presidents and governors would be elected for only one term of six years. We are going to push bills into the National Assembly to that effect. We are a developing country and we cannot afford to pour in millions of dollars every time we have elections. I would be playing a big role for advocacy for sustainable democracy. Our democracy is still fragile and we would do all we can to sustain it. We need to flush out corrupt politicians and it is not just with words but with our attitude.
You can go to Abia State and ask the civil servants. They would tell you that as governor, I eliminated corruption from 1999 to 2007. I told them that the money was meant for them and we must use it that way. That is why we never owed salaries. Throughout the time I was governor, I paid salaries between the 23 and 25 of every month. We always ensured that our obligations to contractors were paid. We never spent what we didn’t have and we didn’t have much. We never got up to one billion naira except for November, 2004. Our budget was usually 12 to 17 billion per year until I left.
The biggest budget I did was N31 billion and we had free education and free medical services for pregnant women and children. The war between me and Obasanjo gave me a lot of challenges. At that time, it was Orji Kalu versus 35 states. We also helped in developing the law in Nigeria. We went to the Supreme Court so many times for interpretation and Lagos State joined us. I want to thank Bola Tinubu because at all times, he told the Attorney General to join us in the suit and I was not afraid. But in the last eight years, no governor wants to ask questions on how the country is being run. Obasanjo was a very strong president and character, but he also had very strong governors and that is what democracy should be like. This is how the federation works and this is how our laws should be developed. People think that the judiciary has not done enough, but I tell you that it has solved a lot of problems in our polity. I was governor for eight years and I knew the type of humiliation the powers that be wanted me to face, but the judiciary said no.
Why then do you still get involved in politics?
A :
Every living Nigerian is a political animal. It is our duty to speak up when things are going wrong. If people like us were not in politics, maybe the third term agenda would have been a success, but we were there to oppose it. It is not every time that we win, neither is it every time that we are in our comfort zone. Sometimes, you need to be out of your comfort zone for things to get done. I’m not interested in party politics, but I cannot stop politics. Nigerians are usually economical with the truth and they need people to be vocal about speaking the truth.
How can I leave a platform on where truth should be said? I must have a stake, a say and an interest in politics even when I’m not running for office. Now that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has won, I must ask them questions based on their campaign promises. In the next four years, I would be working on a project and it would champion the cause for Nigeria to run a presidential system of one tenure only, which would be made up of six years and we are going to start with the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari. I have championed this for a very long time. The amount of money usually spent during elections is not good for the economy.
The economy nearly collapsed because people were running for elections. My non-governmental organisation, the Orji Kalu Foundation would liaise with people from different parts of the country and we would push for the country to adopt a system where presidents and governors would be elected for only one term of six years. We are going to push bills into the National Assembly to that effect. We are a developing country and we cannot afford to pour in millions of dollars every time we have elections. I would be playing a big role for advocacy for sustainable democracy. Our democracy is still fragile and we would do all we can to sustain it. We need to flush out corrupt politicians and it is not just with words but with our attitude.
You can go to Abia State and ask the civil servants. They would tell you that as governor, I eliminated corruption from 1999 to 2007. I told them that the money was meant for them and we must use it that way. That is why we never owed salaries. Throughout the time I was governor, I paid salaries between the 23 and 25 of every month. We always ensured that our obligations to contractors were paid. We never spent what we didn’t have and we didn’t have much. We never got up to one billion naira except for November, 2004. Our budget was usually 12 to 17 billion per year until I left.
The biggest budget I did was N31 billion and we had free education and free medical services for pregnant women and children. The war between me and Obasanjo gave me a lot of challenges. At that time, it was Orji Kalu versus 35 states. We also helped in developing the law in Nigeria. We went to the Supreme Court so many times for interpretation and Lagos State joined us. I want to thank Bola Tinubu because at all times, he told the Attorney General to join us in the suit and I was not afraid. But in the last eight years, no governor wants to ask questions on how the country is being run. Obasanjo was a very strong president and character, but he also had very strong governors and that is what democracy should be like. This is how the federation works and this is how our laws should be developed. People think that the judiciary has not done enough, but I tell you that it has solved a lot of problems in our polity. I was governor for eight years and I knew the type of humiliation the powers that be wanted me to face, but the judiciary said no.
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