From Obinna Odogwu, Awka
The Director of Administration, Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Mike Nwafor, has assured that Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the party, would tackle housing problems in Nigeria if elected in next month’s election.
Nwafor, an architect, was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Anambra State Housing Corporation while Obi was governor of the state. He said that Obi has the solutions to the country’s housing challenges given what he did in the state. He also spoke on other issues of concern in this interview with some journalists. Daily Sun was there.
What really struck you about Peter Obi that made you believe in his presidential aspiration?
There are candidates and there are parties. And each of the candidates feels that he is good enough; he is qualified to be our president. I am sure you can see the candidates; you know them. Their resume is in the public domain except that to some of them, you can’t really tell who they are. They are like the wind. They give you their name, you go to the internet to search for their names, it does not relate with them. They tell you the schools they attended, you go to the state where they said that the schools were located, the schools are non-existent. They tell you that they have these qualifications and you go seeking for those qualifications where they were obtained, they are non-existent. But somebody is standing out there just clear, distinct, crystal and if we realise that we have a problem in this country, then the question should now be, guy where do you pitch your tent? Who do you think we should follow? So, I found Peter Obi the most acceptable, the most qualified, the most distinct and the most verifiable of the candidates. And I am seeking for the good of this land. I want my children to have a country; I want them to have a home. I want those of them outside to come back here and have a fulfilled life. I have friends who are outside; they are seeking to come back home; they also want to enjoy their fatherland; eat of the fruits of the land; walk on the soils of the land and when you put all of these and many, many more things together, you do not have a choice than to pitch your tent with Mr Peter Gregory Obi. So, that’s why we are there.
Perhaps you may take us down the memory lane. You worked with Obi while he was governor here. What would you tell us about him?
While His Excellency Peter Obi was here as governor and from the records that you can also pick from, you notice that he gave stability to governance in the state. He brought decency to governance in the state. You didn’t have scandals in the state while Peter was governor. You didn’t have the reckless kind of living that you hear of other states. You didn’t hear about it. Peter Obi gave character, vision, direction. If you worked, you were paid. If you make procurements, these products are paid for. And when he was here, we took it for granted. We didn’t know what we had. It was only after he left that Ndi Anambra began to see the gift they had in Peter Obi. And you talk with some people today and they say ‘oh Mike, we wish we’ll return to those days of Mr Peter Obi.’ So, those are some of the memories. And I’m sure you know that when Peter Obi was governor of Anambra State, 2006, that his very first trip as a governor outside this state was just between him and me. We made a trip to South Africa and did quite a lot of things that were to be of benefit to Anambra State.
You were the MD/CEO of the Anambra State Housing Corporation while he was governor. Housing issue is one of the major problems in this country. How would Peter Obi tackle housing problems in Nigeria if elected president?
A look into what he did in Anambra State while he was governor will give you a glimpse of what Peter Obi will do with housing if he becomes the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Number one, we have mounted the housing deficit of between 17 and 20 million for some time. But while Peter was governor here, there was a consummate package to deal with the issue of housing first in this state. And I am sure you know that before he left as governor, there were landmark projects that tried to resolve the issue of housing in Anambra where he was in charge. That was when we did the Ngozika Housing Estate. And people tell me now say ‘Mike, that’s the best housing estate in Anambra State.’ We also dusted some projects that seemed forgotten. The Hill View Housing Estate, Nkwelle Ezunaka was acquired about 1985 and abandoned. Nobody could go in there but while Peter was here, he didn’t start it but when he came here, he encouraged development in that place. And if you go to Hill View now it has become a living place. And we tried to introduce the hydrafoam building products into the state to which some of you attended our seminar and you saw how a house could be built within 24 hours. What we sought to do there was to say ‘hey guy you can go to your village and without having to buy all the cement in the land, you can put up a structure in just 48 hours and somebody is living there. And when I first said it, that this is what we are going to do under the Peter administration, you gentlemen of the press, you doubted me. And I went ahead and invited you. And I said, come and see. We hosted it live and media houses covered it and you saw that we can actually have a house in 24 hours. Okey was there. Okey, you saw us build it and you saw people move inside it the same day. And I say that we can still replicate that at a much higher level; more sophisticated level. We can give Nigerians home. We can put shelters over the heads of Nigerians. You can get the civil servants to retire; not in regret but in fulfilment of having a place to live, work and be merry. We can do that.
Are you impressed or satisfied with the way INEC is handling the issue of voter cards distribution. We got a few reports where some people were being prevented from collecting their PVCs because of where they come from?
We are watching that on social media. We have seen what is happening; we are getting reports. We’ve even had to interrogate the voters’ register. The Labour Party, we’ve devoted some time, we analysed it and we’ve seen the underage registrations, seen what looked like foreigners registrations and now we are looking at the PVC collection. What I can assure you is that at our end, we are dealing with that, we are working on that, we are collaborating with INEC. And we believe that INEC will do the right thing because this election is not going to be like any other election this country has had because the country is lying on her belly. And if there’s no rescue now, it’s not just the man on the saddle that will go down; the entire nation will go down. Everybody is lying on their belly. The nation is on her belly. Everything is down, everything has collapsed. So, the only way we can begin a rescue is that everybody saddled with the responsibility of doing or playing his or her role, does it rightly and effectively. If we don’t do that, we don’t know what will be of the nation.