● Our party constitution does not talk about zoning
Immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning and a frontline governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, appeared on a Television Continental [TVC] interview programme on Thursday, January 11, 2024, after he purchased his expression of interest and nomination forms during which he answered questions that centred on his aspiration. He, among other issues, spoke on his “Transforming Our Rural and Urban Spaces Together” [TRUST] agenda, the issue of marginalisation, arguing that Edo North and not Edo Central is the marginalised zone and that the APC constitution does not make provision for zoning. Excerpts:
QUESTION: Let’s begin with the political dimension of what’s happening in Edo State. This is perhaps the first time in the history of governorship election that the number of governorship aspirants has grown to well over 62 among the main parties. The number for your party is also swelling by the day. The last count was 20. What do you make of this unprecedented rise in number this time?
I think it’s something that is very good for people having a variety of choices, a variety of opportunities, or people to make their choices. So, like they say, the more the merrier. I think what is important is the ability of our people to choose the one that they know has the requisite experience and has the proven ability or quality to be able to identify and work with partners and stakeholders. The important thing is being able to move our state forward.
QUESTION : Now, they say you were the first APC aspirant to pick the expression of interest and nomination form. It was done on your behalf by a former attorney general of the state. Were you trying to prove a point by diving in first?
Do you know the scripture that says, whoever steps in after the water was stirred by an Angel would be healed and made whole? Like, you know, I believe in planning. And they say when you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. And so once we saw the timetable, we had a plan to say, we will go there and show that we were serious about this, that we meant business, and we had to go and pick the form. I think that the best way to start is to start….
QUESTION : In primary elections of this nature, there’s a former governor, present and past members of the National assembly; and, then, there is Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu, who had got the guber ticket twice now. What do you think are your chances against these heavyweights?
I think that my chances are very bright. I also feel that I’m a heavyweight. I have been involved in the process before with others, not as a person, but I’ve worked with others, including the pastor that you mentioned. I think I have enough experience in this process, having worked at the state and also at the federal levels.
QUESTION : Let’s talk about zoning. I’m sure you’re following developments in that regard. An official of your party did say last year that APC would prioritize capacity over zoning. But there’s also a growing advocacy for Edo Central to produce the next state governor. So, they say if Edo south has had 16 years, the north eight years, Edo central only produced a governor for one year and seven months since 1999, that it’s only fair it returns there this time round. Do you agree that the Esan people have been grossly marginalized in this regard?
Thanks for asking this very important question. But you see that when you come to equity, you have to come with clean hands. In the first place, our party constitution does not talk about zoning. So, it’s not one of the rules that we should follow. Secondly, the statistics you just read out is that Edo North has had it for eight years. Edo South has had it for 16 years. And then Edo Central, just 18 months. I don’t think that that is quite correct. What is correct is that Edo South has produced four governors for the state. I mean, civilian governors. Edo Central has produced two civilian governors for the state, Professor Ambrose Ali and Professor Oserhiemen Osunbor. And Edo north has only produced one, which is His Excellency, Senator Comrade Adam Aliyu Oshiomhole. So, when you look at it from that perspective, and you want to talk about marginalization, of course, it means that Edo North is the one that has been marginalized. And I think that political appointments go beyond governorship. If you look at the ministerial appointments in the state, since 1999, there have been about nine ministers. Of this, about five have come from Edo Central, three from Edo south, and two from Edo North. Of the two, I am the first to be a minister from Edo North. So, when you look at it from this perspective, you really see that it’s Edo North that has been marginalized. However, the issues at stake go beyond where one comes from. The state is in a mess, and it’s everyone that is suffering it. Whether it’s Edo South, Edo Central or Edo North, what we need at this time is someone with capacity, someone with the necessary experience, someone who understands the state to be able to bring back our state to a trajectory of growth in terms of relationship. For instance, I am from Edo north. My parents were from there. I am married from Edo South. I did my tertiary education in Edo Central. Aside from this, my immediate elder brother is married from Edo Central. So, I have a relationship with Edo Central. So, I am not going to marginalize any part of the state. Because if I do, I have people from each part of the state that would have access to me and would be able to speak to me, to say, this is something that you are not doing. But more importantly, I think it’s how to get our state back. How to ensure that our people are happy, how to alleviate the issues of poverty, how to ensure that our educational system is good and effective, how to ensure that there are teachers in our schools. We require health facilities across the 192 political wards. I think that is what is important to our people. Those who are living in the rural areas need potable drinking water. It doesn’t matter who gets there, whether it’s from the north, the south or the central, but what matters is the person who is able to ensure that potable drinking water gets to all the nooks and crannies of the state. How do we handle environmental matters and ensure that there is good sanitation? I think these are the issues that are important and not zoning.
QUESTION : I like the way you’ve analyzed it, particularly talking about the number of governors that have been elected across the state. You know, there are others who do not agree with you. Some, indeed have said that APC aspirants from Edo north should be appeased to drop their ambition for now. So, when you mentioned that political appointments go beyond governorship, they’ve also brought out a list of the newly appointed minister of Niger Delta, who is from Edo north, same as the majority leader in the House of Reps. And there’s Honourable Peter Akpatason from Akoko Edo, who’s also a ranking member in the House of Representatives. But my question really is whether you’re concerned about the possibility that the leadership of your party might be looking towards supporting an Edo central aspirant this year. I mean, this time, given this pronounced sentiment along this line.
I am glad that you say these are sentiments, and these sentiments are coming from Edo Central. And I’m sure you also know that this is not our area of strength in my party, the APC. The central zone is the PDP stronghold. And when you say that the current minister of Niger Delta is from Edo North, the immediate past minister of health was from Oredo, the same local government as the current governor, and he was there for eight years going through the two terms of the governor. The same thing happened when Professor Osunbor was governor. The minister then was also from Edo Central. So, I don’t see what is new now or what is different. We’ve always had it like this. And like I said earlier on, those who should have been the ones complaining of marginalization is Edo North, because we’ve only had one governor and two ministers.
QUESTION : So, to have your ambition fulfilled constitutionally, you have to get the nomination of your party. It means you must win the primary election to be able to contest. The big question is, what if you lose the primary? Will you stay with the APC or join another party?
I have never joined any other party. I have been with this party from the beginning and I will continue to remain with the party. And with my moving around, reaching out to our party stakeholders, I do believe that I’ll win and I’m focused on winning.
QUESTION : So, what if you don’t win? That’s my question.
I will win, I am sure, because I know that I have the requisite experience to win. I’ve been able to develop a lot of relationship across the state. I am not planning to lose. I am planning to win.
QUESTION : Some would say politicians are the most optimistic people in the world. But many have also said that the ability of your party leadership to manage the aftermath of this primary, particularly the discontent that will be coming from losers, will determine to a large extent, the electoral fortunes of the APC at the forthcoming election. Do you think your party can weather what seems an impending storm, seeing what it’s been through?
I think the leadership of our party is very experienced. It’s not a new party, and I do not foresee any danger in the party going astray. At the end of the day, we are one family. We know that there is one seat that is available, and it’s only one person that is going to get it. And when that happens, we will all cling together. The important thing is that we take the leadership of our state back to us from the PDP.
QUESTION : When you say from PDP, that’s an interesting way to put it, because the governor and the deputy, you probably worked for them in 2016 when they were contesting under your party. What has changed? Is it a function of party affiliation or the performance of the outgoing government?
What has changed is the performance of the outgoing government. Promises that were made have not been kept, and most of the things that we are told have been done cannot be seen and cannot be touched. I think that Edo people want to see things that they can touch and feel and know that government is working. Like I’ve said in some fora, most of the schools in Edo state do not have teachers. How is education going to be qualitative when you find that schools have two and a half teachers administering the entire school? So those are the things that need to change. And then when you look at infrastructure, they are not available. Even the few roads that have been built around Benin, a lot of them do not have drainages. They are being washed away with the first rainfall. And the drainages that were built by the previous government of Adam Aliyu Oshiomhole are not being maintained. They are silted up, and they are not being cleaned. When it rains for three minutes now in Benin, the whole place is flooded. So, there is a need to have a change. We want to have teachers in our school so that we have the true affordable best education. We want to have hospitals around, albeit whether they are primary healthcare centres across the 192 political wards. A situation where one has to drive four to five, hours to get to an hospital is wrong, and all that needs to change. I think that our people have a right to have potable drinking water, because if you continue to take water that is not potable, the propensity of having a lot of illnesses will be high. It means we need more doctors and nurses and hospitals. Like you say, prevention is better than cure. So, I think that these are rights of our people to have access to quality education, to have access to basic health care, to have access to potable drinking water, sanitation, and a good standard of living.
QUESTION : You mentioned that when it rains in Benin, it floods. Some two years ago, the governor threw that back to the former governor of the state, Oshiomhole, when he raised a probe of a N30 billion erosion stormwater project, which I believe you also were aware and part of, given the role you played as commissioner in that state. Is that something you can blame on this administration and not that of Oshiomhole, which you participated in?
Definitely I will blame this administration. There was a storm ater master plan that was put in place. It took twelve months of study, and that study showed that there are 23 watersheds in Benin City. And the comrade Adam Aliyu Oshiomhole’s government had worked on six of those watersheds, and they were working on one of the biggest, which is the Uwelu west and Uwelu east watershed. That’s the one. That was the M30.4 billion contract. And that job at the time Comrade Adam Aliyu Oshiomhole left office was 70% completed. The president came and inaugurated the completed part of it because it went beyond building drainages. The Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole ‘s administration believed in holistic infrastructure development. So, when it went into an area and was fixing the flooding problem, he would do primary drains, secondary drains, the road, walkways; it would green the area and provide street lighting. That particular contract had about 8 underground drains, and these were box culverts, double cells. The entire Igbinadua street, for instance, was underground and there was a road on top that was completed. The Siluko road up to channel 55 was dualized and made six lanes. It was completed with street lighting and the side drains. So, there were eleven rows in that particular area. Since Comrade Adams Oshiomhole left office, no additional work has been done on that area. And this is the main tributary to Ogba river, which takes three quarters of the flood in Benin to the final watershed, which is Ogba river. So, we have a lot to blame the current government for. I’ll tell you, when you buy a brand-new car, do you maintain it after a couple of months? You have to change the oil; you have to change the plugs. Drains are like that. They have to be maintained, especially where you have a city where all the roads have not been paved. So, it means that you are going to have a lot of silt going into the drains. So, if you do not clean them up, then you have flooding. When these drains were constructed by Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole’s administration, it took care of the flooding in those areas. Like the Tomline areas. For instance, the five junction that used to be flooded for almost 20 something years now has underground drains. Sapele road was dualized and drains provided. But all of these areas I mentioned now when it rains they get flooded. The drains are still there, but it’s just that they are filled up with silts. So, the governor or the government needs to desilt them. And it’s not something that is rocket science. It is not expensive to do.
QUESTION : But you can’t also just wish away the power of incumbency. We’ve seen how that plays out in elections. The PDP, for instance, benefited from the infighting in APC in 2020. Is your party counting on the infighting within the PDP this time between the governor and its deputy and also the legacy group?
Our party is counting on the failure of the current PDP government in Edo State. Our party is counting on the fact that the promises that were made by this government have not been fulfilled. Our party is counting on the fact that we have done it before and we have the capability to do it again. So, their infighting is something that is up to them. It’s good for us, but we are focused on the ball to take over governance in Edo State.
QUESTION : Some three weeks ago, when you met with the state executives of the APC in Benin, someone actually referred to you as Oshiomhole Junior. How do you feel about the strong perception that the former governor is your godfather? You saw what happened with the person he supported in 2016. His choice was also rejected in 2020.
I don’t understand what you mean by godfather. The fact that you have a relationship with someone who was your boss, does it then mean that you shouldn’t aspire? I think that what people need to speak to is my person and to ask: is he capable of doing this job or not? Have you seen Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole come out and point hand at any individual so far to say that this is the person that he’s supporting? I have been on the road. I’ve gone through the 18 local government areas. If I was depending on the godfather, I will sit at home and wait to be appointed. I know that this is an elective business. That is why I’m reaching out and I’m letting the people know the programmes that I have and how I want to change our state. I think that is what is important and that if there are opponents who see anything wrong in my candidature, in terms of my person, they should focus on that and leave out third parties. I haven’t brought in Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole in this in all I’ve been doing. But am I happy to have been associated with him? Yes. Did he work well as a governor? Yes. So, what is wrong in having worked for him? A couple of others who are also aspiring for this position worked for him. They are close to him; so, why is he not being godfather to them? So, I think that these are irrelevant. People should concentrate and focus on the ball and tell people, the Edo state people, what they want to do rather than just focus on some flimsy excuses.
QUESTION : But how significant would you say his support will be for you to emerge as candidate of the APC in the forthcoming primary election?
He is the father of the party and he has remained neutral and he will continue to remain neutral, I believe.
QUESTION : Let’s talk a little bit about Edo economy. Your state ranks fifth in the states with the highest increase in debt. Between 2015 and 2022, we saw the debt profile jump from N79 billion to well over N220 billion. How do you intend to fund your own development agenda if you become governor without further plunging the state into more debt?
At this time, I must say that I’m really not prepared to go into the details of what I’m going to do. We have yet to go through the primary election, and I shouldn’t be letting the cat out of the bag. One of the things I’ve basically said is that I would pursue a trust agenda which is transforming our rural and urban spaces together. I think that at the appropriate time, we will go into those details when I come out with my manifesto, and that will be after getting the ticket of the party.
QUESTION : There are quite a number of people who want to be governor. So, I understand if you’re hiding your card for now, but George has called in from Ikeja. Good morning, your guest said a number of things. I will just take two of them. One, he said his party doesn’t have it in their constitution about rotation, and that the governorship position in the state has gone round the three senatorial districts and that only his own has one slot. So as his justification for saying that his zone should be given the governorship slot, number one, the APC as a party at the presidential level, rotation was in the North during the Buhari era. They decided that it will now come to the South. And they’ve already decided that after this one, the presidency will go back to the north, even if it was not written in their constitution. Is that not rotation? Then he also said that the Edo central has got two governorship slots. The governorship tenure of Professor Osunbor he lost, he wasn’t a governor. The court nullified his governorship election. So, as far as the law is concerned, he has not been a governor of the state. Then the Edo central has been agitating, that they should be giving a chance. And he also said that the bulk of the voting population is not in Edo central. Therefore, those other zones where the voting population lies should continue to have the governorship. That’s the understanding I had. That is not fair. All right, George, let me allow my guest react to your position. Prince, you want to react to that quickly?
Okay, yes, I will start with the third point he made. He’s trying to put words in my mouth. I did say that Edo central is not a stronghold for APC. I didn’t mention about the population. And then he talked about an agreement of rotation of presidency between the north and the south. I wonder whether he was there when that agreement was made. But you will see that in the course of the last presidential primary election of APC, we had people from all over the country. The immediate past senate president is from the north. He went through the process. It’s just that he lost. So there was no rotational arrangement that was done. The current president won through the primary election and that was it. It wasn’t based on the fact that there was a rotation.
QUESTION : Perhaps we can have someone call in from Edo. It will be good to hear from your people, right, Prince? But I understand that you are keeping your cards close to your chest. But there are also issues happening. Ibrahim is around. Ibrahim, you’re live now. Hello. Yes, good morning, and good morning to your guests over there. In fact, I was so impressed to see him here again, because if I could remember vividly, he’s the former minister of state. He’s one of those that want to contest in Edo. To me, the way I want democracy to thrive in this country is like, it’s not going in that way. Let everybody have a level playground, a clean playground, so that whenever anyone emerges, he or she gets support. Yes, we are trying to get it right in this present administration. Now for the explanation he has given so far, and whatsoever in that we do, we must try to get it right from this present government of Bola Tinubu. Because sometimes, I don’t know, I keep on asking myself that this type of democracy we have, is it the way they practise it in other places? If it’s yes, how? If it’s no, why? That is my question. Now, I have a question for you to ask our guest here. Is that now what really is missing? That whenever he’s able to get there, that he is going to fix it all. By the time he is elected as a governor, it’s not a governor from one zone or ethnic, but the governor of the entire state. And he must govern and govern well. Because why we always have problem with internal democracy in this country from the grassroots is because of marginalization. And marginalization will not continue going like this. And we say we are going to get it right now; let them put everything on the right pedestal so that those that will come after them will be able to learn from them.
QUESTION : He just asked you another question. I don’t know if you want to answer that. About what you’ve identified that you will be doing differently.
Yeah, of course I would like to answer that. I did say, as I went around the 18 local governments, that I want to transform our rural and urban spaces together. When we did the national development plan, one thing that was very clear to us as a problem in the country is that most governors were focusing on the city centres to the total abandonment of the rural areas of their states. And if you look at the current inflation rate, for instance, for Edo State, it’s 26.6%. I took a cursory look recently at the food inflation for Edo. The food inflation for Edo is currently 33.5%. I also looked at the consumption pattern for Edo and what it shows is that 55.9%, which is almost 56%, goes to food. The other one is fuel and power and then education. And for these other ones, it is 40.9, 40.3 and then 14% telecom. So, if we have a state like Edo, that is really agrarian and food is so expensive, yet 60% of what is produced goes to waste as post harvest loss, which is a low-hanging fruit because of lack of access to the market, and you have that lack of access to the market because development is only in the city centre; especially now, you look at the entire Edo south area, you only find development in Benin city….So what is changing for me is taking development across the entire state, ensuring that there is access to market for our food production, so that whatever is produced can get to the market. And this food inflation that we have would go down. And doing that is also solving the problem of inflation. Secondly, our farmers will no longer labour in vain, because for every 10,000 tons of food they produce, only 4000 gets to the market. So, once we begin to build roads to the rural areas around the agro corridors, we will ensure that there’s off grid power, that’s captive power, that is provided for these areas. You are going to be able to attract cottage industries to those areas, storage facilities for those areas, aggregators to those areas, and that will greatly affect the inflation rate for food in the state. And it will spread, develop government across. It’s also going to take care of the rural-urban migration, which is really very high. But aside from that, I did also mention that our schools must have teachers, because the current situation where we don’t have teachers in the school, is not good for qualitative education. We have colleges of education, like College of Education Igueben. Currently there are only 33 students in such a big school. When I went there two weeks ago, just to check, I was told, because they don’t get employment, they should be employed by the state, especially where we don’t have teachers. These are the things that need to change. We are not saying that we will abandon development in Benin, but we are saying that while we are developing Benin City, which is the state capital, at the same time, we will be spreading development to the rural areas. It must go together simultaneously. That is different.
QUESTION : Prince, there have been increased fatalities from cult clashes in Edo State; It’s been one story of killing or another. That has been the case now for some years. As recent as Christmas Eve last year, a journalist and three others were reportedly killed by cultists. What do you think is happening?
Yeah, it is simply lack of opportunities for the youth. When you don’t get them engaged, then they resort to other issues. And again, this is where trust, my trust agenda comes in. There’s a huge influx of people from the other 15 or so local governments into Benin, and all in search for opportunities that are not available. You can imagine if we are able to stop that drift from the rural areas by providing opportunities for them in the rest of the 15 local government areas. So, it is struggle for power, struggle for relevance, struggle for livelihood that is leading to all of this. And we would ensure that we have our youth very much engaged. Like I said to people, when by God’s grace, I become governor, we are going to involve not only our youth, but also our women in governance across the states. It’s not just going to be left for men, because when you look at the demography, these people are more, they are vibrant and we have a lot of intellectuals among them that we can use to do our work. And I’m sure that by the time the youths are gainfully employed or engaged, a lot of this cult rift will disappear.
QUESTION : So when you say that cultism is a function of lack of opportunities, whether you put the allegations that the political class have also empowered them during electioneering. Like this in helping them to advance their objectives, and how committed are you to a peaceful conduct during this period?
Yeah, the political group like you are talking about can use them by not providing opportunities. And that’s where I come differently. I do not belong to any cult. I am a member of the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim. And I’m in the board of my church. I am a Christian. I do not support cultism in all ramifications. And so when I speak, I am seriously talking about providing opportunities to ensure that all of these are taken care of. It is not in my time to begin to associate and bring courtesy to create disaffection in our state. That’s why I’m also coming with a very credible programme for our people that resonates with them, whether they live in the cities or they live in the urban areas.
QUESTION : There are talks about how some governments in the past have, one way or another, empowered them or empowered people who identified with them. But perhaps we’ll talk about that sometime later. We talked about the PDP earlier, but some are saying that perhaps what the APC should be concerned about in this election is the Labour Party, given the numbers they were able to garner during the presidential election as well as the number of House of Representatives and I think they have a seat in the Senate. Is that a concern for your party? Are you also paying attention to the increasing number of people who want to vie for this position through this platform?
Of course, I am paying a lot of concerns to everything. My party is concerned because we want to win the election and that is. Why we are reaching out to one and all. And that is why I’m also coming. With a very credible program that carries everyone along. A lot of the youth, were disenchanted and like I have said, my government is going to be made up of youths, women and men and we will work with them by creating opportunities everywhere across the state.
QUESTION : Prince. We’re coasting home now. You’ve been talking about igniting a fresh approach of bold ideas through your trust agenda. I think you called it transforming the rural and urban spaces together. I just want to ask you a simple question before we go. You’ve been commissioner, right? You had a fine career in the oil and gas sector, I guess. And then you were also minister between 2019 and 2023. Did I get the timing right? 2019 and 2020?
Yes, you did.
QUESTION : Beautiful. Why do you want to be governor of Edo State?
Thank you for this very good question. One of the assignments I was given by the president was to ensure that we have a national development plan and then a prospective plan for the country. And in putting this plan together, the governance structure that we put in place was to ensure that all Nigerians, all spheres of Nigeria were represented. That is, the governors, the local government system, the private sector, women, youth, the religious bodies, the civil society organizations, and also labour unions. We produced a plan for the country that was approved by the governor’s forum, approved by the National Economic Council, and also approved by the Federal Executive Council. I am not seeing traction. I am not seeing implementation. I facilitated that plan. I understand some of the things that have been put there, the various binding constraints we have in the country that are militating against growth. So for me, I want to use Edo State as an opportunity to prove that the plan that was put together by Nigeria can work. Because once you put a plan together and you don’t implement, then you have just wasted all of the time. One of the things I talked about that led me to the trust agenda is the issue of integrated rural development that was mentioned in the plan. The total neglect of our rural areas, for example, there are no infrastructure of roads; there are no infrastructure of power, no water infrastructure, no health infrastructure. When we are talking about multidimensional poverty, which is lack of access to education, that’s basic education, lack of access to basic health, water and sanitation, these are responsibilities of subnational government that should be handled by local government and by state governments. And of course, we no longer have local governments, we now have federal and states. So I want to be an example to say that these things can be done. We can provide these amenities for all Nigerians, for all the citizens of Edo state. And once we make Edo state an example by doing it, then other states can follow and copy. So that is my motivation for this, because I facilitated a plan that I’m not seeing traction in terms of implementation.
