Okorocha: Buhari’s Script is an Industrialised Export-based Economy
Owelle Rochas Okorocha is no doubt the APC poster boy in the Southeast both as Imo State Governor and chairman Progressive Governors’ Forum. Okorocha spoke with Nduka Nwosu in Washington DC last year as a member of President Muhammadu Buhari’s team during
The Buhari administration is out to build a solid foundation for this country, encourage the productive sector and make sure that people are gainfully employed and stop the importation of all kinds of rubbish into the country
Owelle Rochas Okorocha is no doubt the poster boy of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the South east. Not because he holds the party’s flag in Imo State or because at the national level occupies the position of chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) but because he parades a track record of experience in politics resonating positively to the advantage of the ruling party. The three time Presidential candidate and founding chairman of Action Alliance (AA) has come a long way navigating the murky terrain of Nigerian politics. Add this to his millennial projects fast turning the heartland capital into the image of another Abuja; that explains why Okorocha has become a worthy ambassador of his party always ready to expound and defend its social contract with the people.
Okorocha back in Washington DC last year told this reporter his explanatory footnotes on the pluses and minuses of his party should be viewed from the angle that he was one of the authors of the APC manifesto and therefore was not just defending President Muhammadu Buhari for not delivering the material and visible gains of change in just one year as expected by the masses who voted overwhelmingly for the change mantra. Okorocha further explained: every great change comes with upheaval, pain and in many instances suffering. His analogy: “Every woman wants a baby, but no woman likes a labour room but you cannot have a baby without a labour room, that’s the change, so the change of labour room is the joy of the baby that you have, but when people say change, they mean that they are going to have a baby without a labour room.”
After Buhari’s one year in office, can Governor Okorocha say the change mantra should not be equated with a programme of action as Eddie Iroh, a THISDAY columnist opined? He shot back asserting he was neither ready to play the defensive nor go on the attack but observed the expected silver lining could not have arrived after nine months. Not even the low hanging fruits that would have calmed frayed nerves?
That was earlier before Lai Muhammed admitted Buhari had delivered his promise on job creation and the celebrated achievements of one hundred days in office. While the reporter was bent on picking the issues with statistical references and performance indexes, Okorocha said he had no problems with cold statistics but insisted considering the victories achieved over Boko Haram and the war against corruption with billions of naira and dollars of looted funds coming back to national coffers, who would say the Buhari Administration was not on course delivering on promises? The dialogue progressed with the passion the APC big wig approached the issues, more like a marketing salesman of the party, but he admitted it was much more than that because his belief in the ability of the President to turn around the sick country was anchored on not just his personal and intimate knowledge of the man and his integrity quotient celebrated worldwide but also a track record of delivery that has been the hallmark of his previous assignments to the fatherland
The expectation of positive change in just one year would be asking for too much given the rot on the ground and not even the best magician in the world could have done better under the circumstance, Okorocha explained. “You recall that the oil price jumped down from $110 per barrel to about$38 per barrel, the worst it has ever come down to in the history of OPEC. Oil is our major source of revenue so what do you expect? Of course, we expect the people to feel this way especially with the revelation of the billions of dollars that were looted in the system.”
As the dialogue progressed, Okorocha seemed to be winning the argument persuasively, so the subject revolved on recovery of looted funds and how much of this has been deployed to visible sectors of the economy. The governor lamented the fact that even when the looted funds are discovered, recovering them becomes an issue, what with a legal system that expectedly protects every suspect until you are proven guilty. It is one thing to identify those who looted these funds; it is another thing to recover them. The governor’s admonition was that although things may be getting more difficult for Nigerians, they should not lose confidence on the much expected change. All hope is not lost, he admonished. “I believe what President Buhari is trying to do is to fix Nigeria once and for all. His government is not one of window dressing of an economy that has been in recession long before now.
“This administration is out to build a solid foundation for this country, encourage the productive sector and make sure that people are gainfully employed and stop the importation of all kinds of rubbish into the country. People will feel the pain now but in the long run there will be positive returns.”
Back in his state, the APC chieftain was sad seeing young men roaming the streets of the state capital, playing the bo-peep and act as court jesters, with vain appellations to the chief executive, some money bags and stakeholders if only some peanuts would drop from their pockets. That he summed as the posture of an idle mind, something he has largely taken care of and would be glad if it would be replicated at the national level. What Okorocha is pointing out is that politicians by hiring young men as thugs during elections and dumping them when they ride to power are breeding Frankenstein monsters who keep themselves busy the wrong way, what he calls a government of deceit that has made many Nigerians dependent on begging.
How does this connect to the issue on ground regarding the long awaited promised deliverables from the APC and the chief driver? The party, he argued, is not out to deceive the people by offering them deceptive dividends that approximate to window dressing when there are fundamental and foundational issues in nation building, which is what Buhari is trying to do. Initially there will be turbulence because the old order is giving way to the new. His easy example refers to the arrival of the GSM with the network providers coming with tariffs that were initially typical of a monopolist but as the revolution unfolded and other networks joined the MTN, the market became competitive dragging costs downwards. In the same vein, pump price of petroleum and the price of many imported goods which ultimately he insisted constitute a challenge to young men and women in the import business to reverse the habit in favour of the productive sector; ultimately this would drag prices down and make this moment something for historians to talk about, that there was a time Nigerians were challenged and they seized the momentum to re-write their history from a dependent import economy to a productive, industrialised export economy. This is the Buhari script for the emerging new corporate Nigeria.
Buhari is not running a negative government, he asserted, repeating again and again that things must go up to come down. Does it not constitute an insult to the emerging generation that the naira has to be devalued to buy dollar so that we will continue to import rice and other commodities produced in other countries of the world, Okorocha queried while insisting any government that supports this trend is not only deceitful to the people but is not facing the realities of the time. This is the change APC and Buhari are talking about and it does not happen in one day, Okorocha lectured his guest. “This is hand over, that is the change we are expecting.”
Back to Blair House and the Washington Mandarin Hotel when Okorocha was a part of President Buhari’s team, during his White House visit. Should we consider that visit a success story now that it has been reported the US is willing to support the Boko Haram fight with assault weapons? Okorocha said it went beyond that because Buhari was recognised and still is as a veritable salesman of the new Nigeria. Viewing the polity abroad from the lenses of those who call us a fantastically corrupt nation, Okorocha was exposed to a global community which in that visit seemed to say this who you are rather than what we think we are. The cheering news however was the celebration of a new dawn, the coming of a man who was recognised as an epitome of exemplary leadership. The mantle bestowed on Buhari has not changed and for Okorocha what is more important is that the real silver lining at the end of the tunnel is the emergence of Nigeria someday as a country whose leaders have passed through a baptism of fire to join the comity of nations with decent leaders. That is why Buhari must succeed and that is why Nigeria must not be made a laughingstock.
Buhari, he acknowledged, has given the country a sense of respectability amongst the comity of nations and Nigerians must carry that script and re-write their story. “This is just what I think because sometimes people want me to assess President Buhari in terms of how many roads he has built or how many schools he has set up or renovated but for me that’s my assessment. I just cannot judge him by that, I want to judge him by the integrity he has brought back to the nation; I want to judge him as the man who has come to stabilise the country probably for subsequent leaders to build on in terms of infrastructure development.
“Infrastructure development is a key securing voter confidence in our many electoral promises however, I am looking at the first things first and the integrity of this nation must be upheld and I think we have recorded some success by way global respectability, the way we are being seated among nations now tells you that our relevance is on the rise; no nation can grow above its leader as the leader decides the height of every nation.” (See concluding part on www.thisdaylive.com)