Since he was
removed as National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in
January, Okwesilieze Nwodo has not been seen regularly at public
functions. But, surprisingly, he attended the Northern Economic Summit
held in Kaduna on Thursday, where he spoke about his relationship with
President Goodluck Jonathan, the crisis in Enugu PDP and other issues.
You are rarely seen at the campaign rallies of the President. Are you still with him?
I have been
attending; I was in Akwa Ibom and I was in Kebbi during the PDP
presidential campaign rally. But after I resigned as Chairman, I
travelled abroad for one month. Because the tension and stress was too
much, so I took a holiday with my wife. We’ve been away for one month
and we came back and joined Jonathan’s campaign where we met it.
Enugu State
PDP chapter has been in the news for a long period because of power
tussle between you and the governor. Has that been resolved?
Enugu PDP is there,
we still have our problems here and there. A lot of cases are still in
court and so on and so forth. But we hope it will be resolved before
the elections so that people can make choice of their candidates.
Have you reconciled the two factions?
Well, the faction
is a result of those who are supposed to be the real candidates who
were denied their tickets. And they are challenging their candidature
in court. So we are confused until the matter is resolved.
But it seems that Mr Chime’s faction has the upper hand?
That is yet to be seen.
What do you think is responsible for the poverty in the country?
It is due to
leadership failure. The infrastructure is not enough for the people.
And unless you fix the infrastructure from what we have heard today, it
will be difficult to get the economy right. If you don’t have
electricity, education and health, what can you do? And if you don’t
have planning on how to transform the basic raw materials you get from
the farms into finished products, you can’t get economic growth in the
country.
So, these are the
roles of our National Planning, which is the brain of the nation. And
from the point of the CBN Governor, we are blessed abundantly with both
human and natural resources which other countries like Japan, Singapore
don’t have. They don’t have oil, they don’t have gas, they don’t have
so many things that God has given us, yet they are developed countries.
They are not more intelligent than us. The rice farmers in Taiwan are
not more intelligent than the rice farmers in Nigeria. Why are they
exporting rice to us. Why can’t we cultivate our own rice?
Do you
think that Jonathan’s administration has programmes and policies that
would bridge the wide gap between the poor and the rich in the country?
You know our
President is coming from a very poor background and if you listen to
his speeches; that if he can come from a poor background and get to
where he is today, every Nigerian child has the same opportunity. And
the President is planning that the poorest child has free access to
education. He wants to give that child the opportunity to also become
president like him without suffering what he suffered.
This is a
president that is just as genuine as he comes, as honest as he comes,
as patriotic as he comes. I just wish that Nigerians will give him a
chance by voting massively for him. Because I worked closely with him
for seven months, I know how it is burning inside him to touch the
lives of the downtrodden and the poorest of the poor in Nigeria. I
think that’s why he christened his campaign “A breath of fresh air”.
