From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Stella Adaeze Oduah is representing Anambra North Senatorial District in the Senate. She is a member of People’s Democratic Party (PDP). She is also the Senate deputy chairman on Appropriation.
Oduah a former minister of Aviation, gazetted and profiled Enugu Airport as an international airport, now Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.
She was first elected into the Senate in 2015 and re’elected in 2019 and now seeking for another tenure to continue with her good performance and numerous achievements.
In this interview, Oduah said that if elected for another tenure, she would likely make history to become the first female Senate President due to her wealth of experience. Excerpt:
When were you elected into the senate?
I was first elected to represent Anambra North zone in 2015 and re-elected in 2019 and now seeking for another re-election. I think we have done justice to the trust to the mandate given to us by the people of Anambra North. For us coming on this seat was something that we carefully did the analysis of the people. If you recall, my 2015 campaign was based on my compassion for the people of Anambra North. I have always believed that politics is very noble profession and being a noble profession means that it has to be for those who have people’s interest at heart. So, if you don’t have the compassion, if you haven’t made a name for yourself and if you are not a man or woman of conviction that people’s need must be prioritized, you should not go into politics. I don’t think politics is where people should go to because they want to make a name, because they want to make a living or because they want to succeed in life. You must have succeeded in life, you must also have the passion for the people. That is for me very, very essential. I think also that politics is a service. I think, office holding is something that you equate to a calling because not just because it is thankless, but because it is something you have to do selflessly, willing to leave a footpath, willing to leave a legacy that people will remember that through you there were better changes for the betterment of not just for their individual lives, but for the generality of the people of the zone.
Is it based on that precise that you want to seek for another tenure?
Yes, I believe that we still have several things yet undone. I believe that mission and our vision and the uncompleted roadmap that we have, it will be of disservice to the people if we were unable to complete that. More so, the legislative work is a job that seniority is a mantra, seniority gives you a better position, it gives a much higher platform to network and to improve the networks of those relationship because as legislature we do not have a budget, you don’t have executive powers, what you have is legislative powers to make laws. Enabling laws, laws that will ensure that we have a civil society and that society is based on the survival of the fittest that create equal playing ground and protect everybody and ensure equity, justice and fairness. So, that’s what it is, but because we have decay in our infrastructure, amenities and imbalance in what we have as people, particularly from this part of the state. And because we are operating a federation that means that the executive arm of government has absolute power when it comes to execution of the budget and so on and so forth. So, as a legislature what you will work on is your networks and your network to bring to the forefront or the front-burner the needs of the people. The need for the national budget to incorporate your ideas to make sure that they are prioritized. For instance, a minister from Ekiti State will not know that there is a place called Akili in a local government area called Ogbaru, it is no fault of his. My local government alone has about 150 small communities and villages, it’s impossible to expect a Federal Government minister to know this. It is my responsibility to bring to their notice by ensuring that I do my need analysis, what we need, when we need them and plead that in doing their national development analysis and policies they should remember us. That’s not a legislature’s mandate, but that’s a needful responsibility of the representative.
So, between 2015 and today, how many bills and motions have you done in the Senate?
I’m a very focused person, getting to the Senate and knowing why I went there in the first place. I ensured that I do not do just bills, but bills that are impactful, needful and bills that will make a difference and bridge the gap that exists and in doing so and from the day I went to the Senate till date I have been ranked the first and always the first in my legislative responsibility which is law making. For that I thank my team of staff who are very tenacious and resourceful and I thank God Almighty in the first place for the wisdom and granting me good health to enable me to do that. This is because law making is tedious, a lot of research, a lot of writing and a lot of studying, the brain work and the intellectual work that go into that is quite hectic. You will be surprised the number of hours and days you have to put in making one law. And, so far the laws and motions as I said before I have ranked first, in first and second tenure. It is something Anambra North should really be proud of. We have many bills to my credit, I think we have more than 57 bills.
What is your take on the crisis rocking the PDP, do you think PDP will win the 2023 presidential election?
Yes, of course, PDP will win despite the skirmishes in the party. The leadership of the party is working hard to resolve all the outstanding issues between our presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, some governors and others. I pray PDP will win because it will give me better opportunity. If I win which I’m hopeful and PDP wins the presidential election by God’s grace, Anambra North will make history to produce the first female Senate president of Federal Republic of Nigeria. And that’s why every well meaning Anambra North person should take this election very seriously because having your Senator at that level connotes many things, connotes the amenities you will get, connotes the access you will have, connotes the transformation and national growth of what will become of Anambra North when by grace of God I become the Senate President of Nigeria. That means that anything that Nigeria has to offer we get the first offer of refusal as a number three citizen of the country. It is something anybody should really pray for because we need it. I think God loves this very senatorial zone, I think this is an opportune time that government should come closer to Anambra North and we should take advantage of this and work hard to actualize it.
As minister of Aviation you attracted and converted Enugu Airport to international airport, do you like the state of the airport now?
I’m not happy with the stage of the Enugu international airport because by now we would have had multiple foreign airlines operating on the route. Enugu international airport has been so politicized and I knew that from day one. That’s why I insisted that we must gazette it as an international airport. They fought me from every corner, from every geopolitical zone of the country, but I didn’t care because I knew it was the right thing to do and if we hadn’t done it then, it wouldn’t have been done up till now. The problem of the airport is politics and when I become the Senate President, we will do the needful.
What projects have you attracted to your senatorial zone?
Like I said our work started with need analysis. We know that streetlight is very important with serval reasons, we need to curb insecurity. When there is light it minimizes the problem of insecurity. Whenever you have light, you have social neighour interactions especially at night. It increases commerce because a woman selling banana or frying Akara that closes by 6:00p.m can stay till midnight because there is light to see her customers. That increases domestic economy. So, we prioritize street light installation and water. I don’t think you can see any community that doesn’t have our light and borehole in our area. We have done our first phase, done second phase and we want to go into the third phase of the school renovation projects. We also prioritize health because health is wealth. So, we renovated some primary health centres in our district. We have gone ahead to sponsor bill to bring Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in this zone. It is a very big thing to me because of what it will bring to us and value chain it will bring to our place. It will bring about training of doctors for horsemanship, nurses and other health officers and every communities in this zone will be linked to the FMC by having special area it will focus on like eye clinic, industrial health etc, but the most important thing is that the FMC will be funded by the Federal Government. The hospital will create massive job opportunity for the people. The bill is almost done, we have done public hearing and we are waiting for documentation. Then, Diaspora fund will be used because we shall have doctors and nurses trained. They will go abroad to work, even if they return 20 per cent of their salaries to the country it is big a money to develop our health facilities. Then, road rehabilitation, we have done several roads to ensure that our farm produce get to the market because without good roads, the farmers will not have access to the farms. We are riverine communities, we need to do the road and on time too before the flood water rise to enable traders access the place to buy or they will go to another place to buy their goods. Today, we must have done about 129 roads in Anambra North. Unfortunately, the roads are not enough and because of fund, we are working with federal agencies to see how we can even commercialize it to one, change the way we are doing the roads, two, to get private sector to partner with us do most of the roads, three, to make sure that the government understands that doing road in Anambra North is not the same thing with doing roads in upper land in other zones. Our soil is very peculiar and very soft, so it is more expensive to work on road in Anambra North than any other place in the state because of the nature of soil and water and durability becomes an issue because if you use the same method, it doesn’t work. And, again we want to make sure that our waterways, water transportation, the marine transportation is improved upon so that if you use a speed boat to go from Ogbaru to Anambra West or from Onitsha to Ayamelum or any other place within this axis its easier and faster because the areas are connected by water. All we need to do is dredge the water, put in massive number of boats and make sure it is safe by working with the security agencies like marine police and Navy to make sure they monitor the waterways. These things will be in our next phase in ensuring that road and water transportation are put in place so that people can have alternative means of transportation.
What you have done in the empowerment of your people?
I love empowerment, the reason I love empowerment is because it’s transformational and it’s life changing depending on how serious the receiver is. We gave money to petty traders called “Ego Mbidoaffia” as sort of intervention where a woman is given small money to add to her business to take care of her family. That woman’s life will change, her self esteem and respect will increase and become a better woman and better neighbour. We also gave seed money to farmers to increase their cultivation. We need to have food security, if you can eat in your house what happens outside becomes secondary. If you can feed yourself and your family it’s okay then, if you have additional produce to sell to make money that is a big plus for any man. So, primary need of a man or woman is food, ideology doesn’t matter to a hungry man. The farmers’ trust is a very loaded programme and we have done it in Ogbaru, Oyi, Ayamelum, Anambra East and West, we can’t do it in Onitsha North and South because they are not essentially farmers. We focused on ‘Ego Mbidoaffia’ for petty traders. Again, we have done some trainings, the first, second stages and we are now at the third phase where we are working with Ministry of Labour and Employment and other agencies. And, after the training we send them to overseas like to European countries who don’t have the manpower in their countries. Their population is aging and they need young people to work for them because their economy requires young people to activate it otherwise their economy will start collapsing. The only place you can get young people is in Africa, India and not even in China again because they are controlling their birth rate now. Africa especially Nigeria have enough young people to send to Europe, but they must be skilled labour. We need skilled labours in agriculture, in medicine, etc. So, when we train them and send them there they will become legal citizens and again their money returns to Diaspora’s fund and to their families and domestic economy will continue to grow. So, we are planning on this in this third phase. We had done other trainings like hair dressing, barbing salon, makeup, cooking etc. We have three more trainings coming up by the end of this month, those ones are essentially for rural women to teach them alternative skills, catering, hair dressing and that will be the last for this tenure.