As the general elections draw close, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Dr Stephen Orise Oru, has given reasons Nigerians should not elect the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, in the March 28 presidential election.
Oru, who spoke with AIDOGHIE PAULINUS in Abuja, alleged that Buhari ignited the 2011 post-election violence, an allegation that has not been proved or substantiated. He spoke further on this and other national issues. Excerpts…
How has it been since you resumed in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs?
I consider my appointment as a rare privilege of God upon my life and benevolence of our amiable President, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. I give God the glory and I thank Mr. President. My deployment to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs is an opportunity for me to contribute my quota to national development, especially in ensuring the even development of the Niger Delta region which is the very resource base of Nigeria that has suffered from a long period of neglect. The job, no doubt, has a lot of challenges. It is interesting, stressful and it provides a great opportunity for me to interact with quite a good number of persons, groups and organisations that are stakeholders in the Niger Delta region.
What actually are the challenges?
The challenges are numerous and are of various shades and colours. To mention two critical ones; the Niger Delta region has a difficult terrain. Most parts are swampy, and the region has longer period of rainfall. Because of the difficult terrain, it costs more to build and promote infrastructural development in the region unlike other regions in the country. For instance, in the area of road construction, a lot of sand filling has to be done before you can do any road construction work. A longer period of time is required for the sand-filled areas to settle, rammed and well compacted before the laying of asphalt and meaningful finishing can be undertaken. Secondly, the anxiety of the people is there for quick delivery of the projects being executed in the region. After a long period of neglect, the people expect much more to be done miraculously within a short time. Expectations of the people are very high and funds are not limitless to ensure speedy implementation of projects in the region.
Is the budget of the ministry better this year because your people have been crying of drastic reduction of the budget?
You have rightly captured it in your question that our people have been crying over drastic reduction of the budget. We are all aware of the financial situation in the country as at today occasioned by the global fall in the price of crude oil which is the main export product of the country. The budget has been drastically reduced across board to meet up with the new challenges. We thank God that we have a purposeful government that is doing its best before now to ensure the revitalisation of our economy through the re-invigoration of the non-oil sector, especially the agricultural sector.
The situation of the Niger Delta has remained central in the ongoing campaign with the APC insisting that this administration has done little for the region. What do you make out of this, for instance, talking about the East-West road which people believe has gulped so much money?
Comments from the APC cannot be taken seriously and do not deserve further response. Suffice to mention that as a party that is supposed to provide alternative views to those of the government of the day, they have failed in all ramifications. They do not carry a semblance of qualities that can be referred to as progressives. They see nothing good in the activities of the government. They are not objective critics; all they do is to criticize for the sake of criticism.
The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has done so much to promote even development in the Niger Delta region. The East West road is 90 per cent completed. Section 1, which is from Warri to Kiama will be completed by March 23, 2015. Section II, apart from the Kiama Bridge, will be ready by May. Section III is virtually completed, apart from a failed session and the newly awarded contract of Section III of 00 – kilometre 15 of Onne Sea Port and new interchange. There is also now a section five of the East -West road which is being funded by the China Exim Bank awarded to the Chinese firm, CCECC to construct the long bridge and road from Oron in Akwa Ibom, through Odukpani to Calabar. This project, which costs $1billion and when completed, it will reduce travel time from Oron to Calabar from three hours to less than 30 minutes.
The Elele road which is a major artery between Port Harcourt and Owerri, is 60 per cent completed; the Obehia-Akwete-Etinam road is under construction; the Gbaregolor-Ogragbene road in Delta State is 95 per cent completed; the Mbaise ring road in Owerri area is under construction and has gone up to 40 per cent and work is ongoing. Nine skills acquisition centres are at various stages of completion and we have about 440 housing units being built by the ministry. Some of them are almost completed, while some will be commissioned within the next two weeks. We are also engaged in cassava processing plants. Seven of them have been completed and eight are ongoing. Three of them will be commissioned within the next two weeks.
We have trained about 2,200 youths in various areas of youth empowerment and training programmes in Israel, South Africa and Nigeria. We have also involved some of our youths in training programmes in the area of Oil and Gas and Information Communications Technology (ICT) and Maritime Engineering. Last year, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs trained over 200 Niger Delta youths in the Identify, Train and Empower (ITREN) programme to acquire skills in repairing and assembling of phones, laptops and computers.
The ministry is also involved in land reclamation and shore line protection projects. Some of them are completed and already in use, while others are undergoing one form of progress towards completion or the other.
The truth of the matter is that the APC may be criticizing the ministry because they see the ministry as a ministry that is focused only on the construction of the East-West road. What they do not understand is that beyond the East-West road, the Ministry is involved in several other activities such as the promotion of peaceful co-existence in the Niger Delta region. We also handle and resolve intra and inter-ethnic conflicts.
The administration of Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has done well in promoting the transformation of the Niger Delta region. I believe very strongly that he is delivering the dividends of democracy to the people at every level. If he is to be judged by his performance in these four years, I wish to quickly say that he deserves another four years so that he could do more for Nigerians.
So, you are indirectly saying in fairness, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has achieved its goal in the region?
The ministry has achieved quite a lot to justify its establishment and it could do more because development has no ceiling. More and more achievements will be recorded if we all vote President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for a second tenure to enable him to continue to do good works.
Surprisingly, you were the only minister that publicly commented on former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tearing of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) membership card recently. Did you do that because you once held a position in the PDP or what were the other reasons?
My response to the highly publicized drama of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tearing of his PDP card is anchored on the fact that he is one of the most fortunate persons in Nigeria who has enjoyed the privilege of ruling this great country twice: first, as military head of state and later, as president from 1999 to 2007. He has an unfettered access to President Jonathan. He is a member of the Council of State. He is the first beneficiary of the PDP who came out from prison and was given the platform of the party and to contest for the highest office in the country. He was the leader of the party and later the chairman, PDP Board of Trustees. Having occupied these top most offices in the country and the party with all the privileges attached, one does not expect him to be involved in such inglorious dramatization. As a leader and elder statesman, I respect him and do not wish to join people who have used negative languages on him. But I do believe that he is naturally equipped with all the comical attributes to make a U-turn for good. Mr. President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has a lot of respect for him and will continue to give him such regards.
What do you think led to that kind of behaviour?
That is Obasanjo for you. He has his own style, antics and approach to politics. He dances where angels tread cautiously.
There are allegations that the PDP, and indeed, the President’s men, are using inciting words in the ongoing campaign. Do you think the allegations are right, most importantly as they are coming from eminent personalities like Prof Wole Soyinka?
What has Prof Wole Soyinka said to make it look like the PDP stalwarts are making remarks that are inciting and trying to overheat the polity? First of all, Wole Soyinka is not a PDP member. He is a social critic and a Nobel Prize winner that is respected internationally. So, if he comes up with a judgmental statement about what he sees that is happening to his fatherland, it should be based on the fact that it is in the interest of Nigeria. And as far as the PDP Campaign Organisation is concerned, it is made up of highly respected Nigerians who have made their marks over the years as nationalists, as democrats, and not as bigots that now make up what is APC, which is virtually made up of strange bedfellows and their statements are more volatile when compared with the statements of the PDP. It is the APC presidential flagbearer that threatened Nigeria that it would burn in 2011 and his remarks and actions led to several youth corps members being killed in various parts of Northern Nigeria. For the first time, we have had a man whose past is riddled with dictatorship and outright disrespect for human rights.
You would recollect that it was his regime that introduced kidnapping into our lexicon when attempts were made to bring Umaru Dikko from the United Kingdom (UK) after he was crated. This is a man who has no regard for human rights and I think he should be the person that should be vilified by the average Nigerian and not people seeing the moderate statements of either the flagbearer of the PDP or the members of the campaign organisation as the ones that are volatile because we have a lot of responsible people. It was at the campaign of the APC not too long ago that the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, made a statement that if they did not get the result that they were expecting, they will declare their own result and run a parallel government. But you will agree with me that the Jonathan Campaign Organisation is made up of people who are highly tolerant and well-behaved and they have not responded to such abrasive remarks by the campaign director-general of the APC.
Do you share the fears by some people that whichever way the presidential election goes, there would be crisis since the ground is already being provided for it?
I think the situation in the country is better now and the postponement of the election has calmed down a lot of nerves. A lot of people who were registered to vote, but who did not get their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), have had the opportunity as a result of the extension to collect their PVCs. I believe this would have led to a lot of crisis if it had not been for the extension because if we consider a situation where a young man goes to a polling booth and he cannot be accredited because he did not have the PVC or maybe one or two such persons arriving and they did not get their PVCs, we would have had a situation of riot being promoted. But with the extension, nerves have been calmed; the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is claiming that they have supplied 80 per cent of the people their PVCs, which is better for the nation. And you know that as democrats, the PDP members are not going to go to war if they do not win, although we are poised to win and I believe that we are the party to beat any day.
When the National Security Adviser advised that the election should be postponed for security reasons and for the fact that INEC was not prepared, the APC cried out that heaven will fall and that election must hold. Today, the PDP is vindicated. Everyone is aware that INEC was not prepared and if the elections were conducted on February 14 and 28 respectively, several persons would have been disenfranchised.
Why are you poised to win?
Because we are the biggest party in Africa. The conglomeration of some strange bedfellows who now make up the APC has not shaken the PDP. We have the national spread. We have the structures across all the local governments of Nigeria, across all the states of this country. We have credible performance to our credit and that is the difference.
Why is the posture of your party suggesting that they are against the card reader and all that INEC is doing?
The posture of the PDP is not against the card reader. A lot of people are worried about the card reader because it has not been reasonably tested overtime. They are wondering why the card reader was not used when they had elections in places like Ekiti and Osun states which are smaller areas for experimentation during the elections in those states for governorship. If they had been tested in some actual situations, one would have used the lessons from such situations to decide on the way forward. Secondly, some studies undertaken by experts in information technology recently showed that it is possible to tamper with the card reader and it could be used to promote subjective results or skew the result against any political party if properly manipulated. It is not the PDP that has these fears, but if you have been watching a lot of the recent programmes on the television and if you have been reading the newspapers, the media is agog with fears that the use of the card reader will fail us. This is further confirmed with the recent mock trial of the card readers in the six geopolitical zones, including Delta state. As somebody who has carried out research, if you are doing a study and you want to make inference from the study population to the general population, a certain percentage of that study population must be properly reflected before the result of the research can be tenable as proper research. I am not speaking on behalf of the PDP, I am speaking generally as somebody who went to school and attained a certain level of qualification as a Ph.D holder in Education. You cannot for instance, take what has happened to make any inference to the general population of Nigeria considering one, the number of people that turned out in those six geo-political areas, the number of card readers that were available for people to use so that you can use the result in those states to make prediction as to whether it would work on the day of the election.
I was listening to a programme and I saw a member of the House of Assembly on the African Independent Television (AIT) and also the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) networks and he clearly said that the card reader had between 35 and 40 per cent failure when it came to identifying the card reader, putting it under and then, thumb print. Thumb print had between 35 and 40 per cent failure. That is serious! And the response that was given by an INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner was ‘hey, look, we will correct some of these problems before the elections.’ This one gives Nigerians cause to worry and for the results to be reasonably and statistically viable, there is need for the test population to be beyond what was used. Everybody in Delta State could not participate because the card readers they had were only located in Asaba. So, how could you use the result for instance of the card readers in Asaba to make inference to justify the usage in the whole of Delta State which is made up of 25 local government areas and about two million voters? So, it becomes unrealistic when you base the result of what happened in a voting point in one local government area in Delta State to justify its usage for the rest of the state. Prof. Jega, in a live television programme on Monday, March 16, stated that the card reader is likely to fail in some areas. But he promised that in such places, they will be replaced within the period of accreditation. That, to me, is untenable considering the vast area and different terrain of the country. As Dr. Orji puts it recently, there are various aspects of technology that must be comprehensively tested to ensure compatibility and compliance. First is the functional test. That is, does the technology work? The second is compatibility test – does the technology work consistently for everyone? The third being performance test. That is, does the technology respond quickly and how does traffic affect performance? The fourth being the security test – is the technology secured against attacks? And the fifth is the usability test – is the technology easy to use and does it respond to interactions as expected?
Going by the results of the pilot testing, it is obvious that the card reader has not met any of these. It is only a prototype and not ready for use in this forthcoming 2015 election. Nigeria cannot afford any experimentation at this stage. In fact, using the card reader in its current state for this election will be catastrophic and will even open opportunities for manipulating results. The flaws recorded from the last test run are too vital to be ignored.
In all these, should we still be hopeful of a peaceful election?
We in the PDP are expecting a peaceful election. Mr. President is a man of peace. We that are his followers are doing our best to emulate him in spite of all provocation by opposition. So, before, during and after the election on March 28, we will work hard to ensure free, fair and credible electoral process and maintain law and order. Those who promote or try to promote violence or misconduct should be ready to meet with the wrath of the law enforcement agents, who am sure will ensure that law and order prevail across the land.
As the general elections draw near, what is your advice to Nigerians?
First, I wish to say that Nigerians should reflect on what their leaders have done in the past to judge what they will do if elected. My advice is that all Nigerians should come out en mass to vote for Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan because he is a democrat and a detribalized Nigerian to the core and has performed credibly well. He has unbundled the power sector. He has respect for press freedom and as we speak now, the media is not gagged and press men are not in jail. He has revived the railway system which was comatose. He has initiated several youth and women empowerment programmes such as YOUWIN and Subsidy Re-Investment Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). He has respect for the rule of law. He is a champion of gender equality and you will agree with me that Nigerian women have never had it so good. He is a good Nigerian leader who has touched the lives of ordinary Nigerians in an extraordinary way. He is well educated and his academic qualifications are not in doubt. He is young and fit. His is a sound mind in a sound body. He has done well and in support of his laudable outing. Let us join hands and vote PDP, the umbrella party for continuity, progress and a greater new Nigeria.
Finally, I wish to advise that Nigerians should eschew all forms of desperate attitudes and violence before, during and after the elections and promote love amongst themselves.
SUN
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