The Sun News On-line/politics

Imo State Governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, has taken a swipe at the leadership situation in the country and the seeming reluctance of expired leaders to quit the political stage. Ohakim says for Nigeria to launch into the ICT age and keep up with the rest of the world, there has to be a radical overhaul of its leadership structure, noting that the country needs leaders in the cast and generation bracket of the likes of Barrack Obama, presidential aspirant of the US Democratic Party.

“Look at America; (Barrack) Obama is 40 something years old. Everywhere in the world now, people are beginning to give leadership to the ICT generation, where is our succession plan?”, Ohakim said, in his first elaborate interview since the media hoax that he was arrested in London with cash of over one million Pounds Sterling. Excerpts:

Hack-writers now parade as journalists
Ikedi Ohakim would definitely pass as one of the most viciously pursued sate chief executives in today’s Nigeria. But the who insists he has no problem with people opposing his government says he is shocked at the extent desperate politicians would go to fabricate falsehood, all in an effort to tarnish the image of an innocent man. And he holds some journalists responsible, pointing out that a handful of fraudsters have gate-crashed into an otherwise noble and respectable profession, and are giving the rest of the pack a bad name.
“When we were children in the 60’s, even in the 70’s, journalists commanded the best respect among all the professions.

When a journalist comes to a public gathering or comes into a church always having a fountain pen on his breast pocket, people bowed and that made it possible for school children in those days to be memorising the works of Shakespeare and other literatures and then joining Debating society.
“As I am talking to you now, I can recite more than three or four books of Shakespeare page to page because of the way we admired people like Mokwugo Okoye in the olden days. Then, after journalists, you talked about teachers. When your headmaster is to visit your family house, you must tell your mother to prepare the best food for the headmaster and you would go and pip to see how the headmaster is putting the food into his mouth.

Doctors came third in line of profession with respect.
“What do we have today? What we have today is a sorry sight. It was journalism that gave birth to what is today independent Nigeria. Most of the nationalists were journalists. Look at Nnamdi Azikwe, Obafemi Awolowo. Also look at people like, Mokwujo Okoye, Anthony Enahoro, and M.C.K. Ajuluchukwu that followed them.

Every time these journalist-nationalists were churning out literatures–newspapers, example, Onitsha Market Literature, people were reading and beginning to know civilization, and developing and started fighting the Whiteman and because of that pressure, we were able to get independent. Then journalists were properly remunerated. Now what I see now is a sorry sight. A sorry sight in the sense that journalism looks like other professions. Quacks have penetrated into the journalism profession. People are beginning to do journalism as if it is an auction: Cash and Carry! It becomes cash-and-carry journalism.

“Some people also have the mentality that government is still the colonial government and that they must fight the government. Journalism is not meant to fight government. It can also be used to promote government. And what is government? Government is a virtual institution. We must grow this country. There is no time left for us. Technology cannot wait for us any longer. The only way to grow it is information. If you open pages of newspapers, the information that will enable us grow is about 10 percent of what you get in any newspaper.

The other 90 percent are taken by adverts–Obituaries, backbiting, hack writings and commentaries that have become watery. People are commenting on one thing and writing it over and over again. So, journalists must do something to bring back the tune. You see, journalism is like a product. It has its introductory stage and it gets to the apex and it descends. It has come down. There must be a way to re-tool, re-fashion re-promote, and re-differentiate journalism today. I also support this freedom of information bill. If we want to talk of freedom of information on one hand, it is like economics, on the other hand, there has to be a well crafted and libel law in this country.

A libel law that you hold publishers for everything they published so that any journalist or hack-writer that strays into a newspaper cannot at the dead of going to press, sneak in a material that will make the newspaper close down. By the time we begin to hammer fines and charges on publishers then journalists will be able to sit up. Journalists should also remember that they are also nation builders and, like doctors, they shouldn’t harm their enemies. If armed robbers shoot their enemies and they are brought to their clinics, they must treat them.

“You don’t start talking of favoritism, I don’t like the face of this man or am supporting this man or my friend is working for him therefore whatever material they bring, I will publish it without cross checking it. Then what happens to the dictum that for every information, you must cross check the other side of it? That has gone.

Look at what happened to me. I went to London. I informed the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I informed the Nigerian Ambassador who waited for me, took me to my hotel, checked me in.
“The investors came. We signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of Imo Oak Company. The good thing about that company is that Imo State will not put in 10 kobo and Nigeria will not put in 10kobo but at the completion of that project, we can buy back 40% of the entire project. That is the first of its kind because these investors want to compete with the Chinese who are now coming up to take over Africa. And these are the people who have all the money to throw into our economy and they have agreed to come and you want to scare them away.

“You want Imo people to continue with unemployment? you don’t want people to grow? You want our place to remain a village because of the ambition of one person. It is God that gives leaders. I just laugh at people who are struggling for this post. If those who have been governors or presidents before tell you what office is like I don’t think any uninformed man will start craving to take up that position. It is the worst position you can think of in the whole universe. A position where every morning those who are praying against you are more then those praying for you, those who are plotting against you may be equal or above those for you. Everybody wants favour. You must dish out, your friends will become your enemies tomorrow. Your brothers will turn against you”.

Re-orientation is key: Any idiot can tar road
Everybody wants his road to be tarred. Government is not bringing in infrastructure etc.
Any idiot can tar road, any idiot can build hospital but no idiot can build and make the people think right, to increase their life expectancy, to make them acquire the right education and to show them the road they would follow. That is what is called government. Most journalists are products of the decadent society. So we must begin to do a national re-orientation. A national re-orientation should take a chunk of our national income because people have resigned to fate because of the economic situation and if we continue like this, it is going to be a vicious cycle. We have fallen into what economist call liquidity trap. This time, it is not liquidity trap, it is social trap, psychological trap.

These are traps that you can not come out of it unless an external force comes to help you. This external force will be a kind of re-orientation or try to bring the new generation to succeed expired generation. We have wasted two generations already. You have a very short span on earth. You operate within 30 years. After 30 years that is the productive age, immediately you come out of school and the time you will retire is between 30 and 35 years. After that you have nothing to offer the society. If you don’t have arthritis, you have hypertension or heart disease. You will be battling with your health, battling with school fees, battling with how to eat then you begin to go back to your village to sing “Lord I’m coming home”. That is the issue.
So these young men who are writing this thing are the ones we are now preparing the future for. But they said they don’t want.

We need an Obama, but our old men refuse to retire
Again, I have discovered that there are some people when we were in primary school, we were hearing their names in politics, today we are still hearing their names in the same politics. When will they get old? When will they retire and give chance to other people? Look at America; (Barrack) Obama is 40 something years old. Everywhere in the world now, people are beginning to give leadership to the ICT generation, where is our succession plan? When are we going to handover? A man that cannot climb the third floor of a building then you make him a leader. He cannot jog in the morning, he does not have the strength to sit down for eight hours and work on files. He will have information overload.

He is illiterate in terms of computer age. He cannot read wide because he was reading “Eze Goes to School.” These days you read volumes. They cannot cope. It is not their fault. You give them phone they cannot even read their text messages or send one or download their e-mail. They don’t know what is happening. It looks like fairy tale to them. The only thing they have is Okada Association. They have Egusi Sellers Association, why? This hack-writing, formulating things that are not existent. I read in one Internet media that time a man made a broadcast that Umaru Yar’Adua’s dead body was being flown back to Nigeria. I read it myself. You didn’t crosscheck. A man that is healthy in Nigeria is the one you pronounced dead.

I was in my house on Easter day entertaining friends, a text message came to the telephone of my friend, Chief Tony Chukwu, saying: “Your governor is in London now arrested. He is now in Scotland yard.” The man gave me the phone, I read it and just laughed. I’m not here now? is it my spirit they arrested? Or have I now divided my self into two, one in Scotland Yard, one in Nigeria? I asked.

Why would anybody carry over £1 million in cash?
If I have such amount of money, I’m a dwarf. I have been operating in the corporate world for several years running companies that have something to do with Federal Government and other governments in West Africa. Where would the cash come from? if I may ask. This is a state that receives average of N1.8 billion every month and pays salary of N1.6 billion. I am performing miracle in that state and people don’t know what I am doing and how I am doing it. There is not even money to carry. Assume that I have legitimate money to carry, am I a fool to carry it in cash? supposing they dispossess me of that money? Even a brainless man would not believe that somebody would carry such amount of money.

What actions are you going to take now?
I have sued the two newspapers N5billion each. They are going to feed me this year. They are feeding me and Imo people. They have to contribute to our Clean & Green Initiative. That money will be put into Clean & Green Initiative and our job centre for our youths. The youths are rioting they said they don’t want to see these papers in Imo State. I asked them to take it easy. If you start confiscating their papers, they will not have enough money to pay us what the court will give us.

Why didn’t you think of forgiving them?
They have not thought of forgiving me too. Because if a paper has done that rubbish and up till now they have not been able to apologise to me either through their media or sending delegation to me. It then means something is wrong somewhere, there must be something that is making them to have such a heart to have committed such a blunder.
What prevents you as a leader to pick up your phone and say this, “I am very sorry sir for what we did, please forgive us.” But up till now they have not done that.

How did you see the EFCC coming to debunk the whole rumour?
Somebody told me that I’m lucky and that I am the first governor in Nigeria that EFCC is defending. That shows that EFCC is now restructured and they now know what they are doing. It they did not debunk that story, some columnists would have been coming up with commentaries on what would have become a national discourse. Time waits for nobody. The time I waste in newspapers discussing rubbish we can use it to discuss small scale industries, micro credit scheme for our youths, how you can be a human being, how you can restructure your life. Why do you waste papers?