From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Prince Benjamin Benedict Apugo, a member of Board of Trustees (BoT) and national caucus of All Progressive Congress (APC), marked his 70th birthday recently, though on a low-key as a result of COVID-19.
In this interview with Sunday Sun, the Oparaukwu/Ochiagha Ibeku said that Nigeria is still wandering in political wilderness over the years.
He is equally worried about the level of corruption in the country just as he is not satisfied with the manner the present administration is fighting it.
He spoke on other issues. Excerpts:
At 70, you still look very young and strong, what’s the magic?
Well, it depends. As far as I am concerned, one has to take everything easy, to be able to survive, particularly as it affects my state, when I’m in wilderness which is called Abia State, it’s a wilderness, so, what do I do? I have to take solace in praying, and asking God to help us bring a change that will put this state in a better position. The magic is happiness, I live in the village and I am satisfied with my village life, that’s one of the things that make me happy. Again, I’m always very happy since I don’t go to look for contract from government, I don’t even know where Abia Government House is nor go to the Villa to look for contract, so, there is nothing that throws my tension up. It is when you go to people to beg for this or that, you start having hypertension. But since I decided to live in the village with my people, and fortunately my people love me and that makes me extremely happy. Again, remarkable things I have been able to achieve for my people, like the University of Agriculture, Umudike and the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, make me feel happy all the time.
At 27, you were the chairman of the NPN in old Imo State, today, you are 70, going down memory lane, would we say the country has arrived politically?
Today, I am of the APC, I’m in the hierarchy of the party. But I can’t tell you that APC or PDP are doing well. We’ve not arrived politically. Why I’m talking of APC not doing well is because of the past congresses. Coming to government, from what has been established which Buhari did, it is not comparable with all the years PDP has been in government, you will give Buhari pass mark. But coming to party congresses, the party has about 90 state chairmen and over 500,000 LG chairmen and that is not giving me happiness because it’s not supposed to be so. That’s the only thing that I can say drops one per cent from APC. Going further, nothing can be compared with the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) government. If you ask me of government that was near corrupt free, I will call that of Muhammadu Buhari as a military Head of State because Maj-General Tunde Idiagbon was there, everything went orderly in the country. They were the people that tried to bring the country near to what NPN did, but unfortunately, it didn’t last.
What do you think is the way out for the logjam in the APC congresses?
The way out is that congresses in most of the areas are going to be repeated. Like in my own state, Abia, there was no congress. There is no way someone will just enter into Ikechi Emenike’s house, signed a paper for him and he will take it to Abuja and claimed that he did a congress. He has done it before and that’s why it is not new to me and when he did it, it was this Mai Mala Buni that was the national secretary. He did it and lost; he took APC to court severally, I was the one that stopped those court cases. If APC says it is a progressive party, it should not cover the truth and if anybody does that, it will not stand. How many people will vote for Ikechi Emenike? I’m not saying what Donatus Nwamkpa did was right, but my position is that both should be cancelled.
As a member of the highest body in APC, have you made any formal complaint to the national leadership of the party over the Abia congress?
No, no, no, no. Its not me that will make the complaint, it is the state, I’m not a state member. They make that complaint and it will come to us, which I know they have made. And the party has handed it over to His Excellency, Hope Uzodinma to handle.
How do you assess FG’s fight against corruption?
There’s a lot of corruption in the country today. This corruption didn’t start during this regime, it has been there. But the problem today is that those Mr President appointed to fight corruption are not doing that, rather they embrace it. Because if they are fighting corruption, a person like the immediate past governor of the state who is from my place, Umuahia, should have been in prison. Of course, this is true before God and man. EFCC has published the money he looted up to three times, they are all documented. He was already in prison before he was made a governor. The documents are there, the case file is there, the charge is there. People are seeing him moving about, and nobody is arraigning him.
Two former governors are now in jail over financial crime, which never happened before under a democratic setting, still you said this government is not fighting corruption?
I am talking about my own state, it is clear that we were defrauded of everything. Somebody was talking the other day on national TV and said Abia is the dirtiest state in Nigeria. The man said he spoke because he visited Abia State and the man was down too right. Why should his observation not be correct, is there any government here? There’s no government in Abia State for kingdom sake.
Many people are not happy with the way things are in the country today, would you say your party APC is living up to its billing?
Whether people are happy or not, the way the country is today was not caused by APC. What the country is passing through now is as a result of the looting done by PDP which the present government has not collected the money back. If they had collected all these looted funds and invested back in the country, there will be no hardship.
Going by what is happening, do you think APC will continue in power beyond 2023?
Well, if we go by the general opinion, APC cannot be compared with people who are struggling to lead the country. You cannot compare APC with PDP, to be sincere. It is true that the APC Federal Government has not done much in Abia, but they have done a lot in other states. The Minister of Works, Fashola announced the award for the reconstruction of Bende Highway three years ago, but since then, no single grader has been mobilized to that road.
As one of the Igbo leaders, is it not imperative that you people come together to put pressure on FG to fix these roads?
It is not a question of Igbo leaders coming together. We have representatives in the federal executive council, they should represent the interest of the Southeast.
You’ve been saying that APC will take over power in Abia come 2023, but with the problem the party is presently facing, is that still feasible?
The problem you are talking about is what the party leadership can settle in one second. It’s a question of seeing the right thing and announcing it. The question of taking over power from PDP, we are not trying to grab, it’s already there for APC because PDP has nothing to tell anybody they did in the state for 24 years. Can anybody who is reasonable enough from Abia State, no matter the amount of money the person is paid, vote for PDP? Those in PDP in the state know what I am talking about are not even working for anybody to vote for them because they know no one would.
With the number of political bigwigs that have joined APC in Abia, won’t you have problem picking your flag bearer in 2023 and which zone would produce that?
We can sit down and do consensus. I will tell them my own opinion and I know they will consider it. We are not going to do zoning. The thing remains that no matter where a good candidate comes from, there the governorship will go. Zoning destroys a lot of opportunities, because my place can have carpenters and what you require to fix the state are mansion men. Because we have zoned it to the place that have carpenters, we will go there and pick someone and at the end, he will not know how to handle trowel and you are stranded right from day one.
At 70, you are now a man with grey hairs that come with wisdom, what’s your advice to Abians?
My advice to them is that they should exercise patience, in no distant time, we will come out of our present predicament.